tihraxy  of t:he  t:heological  Seminary 

PRINCETON    •    NEW  JERSEY 
PRESENTED  BY 

E.  A.  Richards 

BX  8935  .C46  1876 
Presbyterian  Church  in  the 

U.S.A.  General  Assembly. 
Centennial  historical 

f^isrourses 


.  MAR  26  196 


Historical  Discourses 

DELIVERED  IN  THE  CITY  OP  PniLADELPHIA,  JUNE,  1876, 


BY  APPOINTMENT  OF  THE 


General  Assembly  of  the  PRESBrrERiAN  Church 
|n  t\t  luite))  Statts  0f  Jlmerica. 


WITH  THE 


MODERATOR'S  SERMON 


BEFORE  THE  GENERAL  ASSEMBLY  OF  1876. 


PHILADELPHIA: 
PRESBYTERIAN  BOARD  OF  PUBLICATION, 

No.  1334  Chestnut  Street. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  In  the  year  1876,  by 

THE   TRUSTEES   OF   THE 

PRESBTTERIAN   BOARD  OF   PUBLICATION, 

In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


WfSTCoTT  &  Thomson, 

8terentt/pers  and  Electrotirpere ,  Philada, 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

I.  The  Period  from  the  Founding  of  the  Presbyterian  Church 
in  the  United  States  of  America  to  the  Commencement 
of  tlie  War  of  the  Revolution,  by  tlie  Rev.  Alexander  T. 
McGill,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Professor  of  Ecclesiastical,  Homiletic 
and  Pastoral  Theology,  Princeton  Seminary 7 

II.  The  Period  from  the  War  of  the  Revolution  to  the  Adoption 
of  the  "Presbyterian  Form  of  Government"  (1786),  by  the 
Rev.  Samuel  M.  Hopkins,  D.D.,  Hyde  Professor  of  Eccle- 
siastical History  and  Church  Polity,  Auburn  Seminary 71 

III.  The  Period  from  the  Adoption  of  the  Presbyterian  Form 
of  Government  to  the  Present  Time,  by  the  Rev.  Samuel  J. 
Wilson,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Professor  of  Biblical  and  Ecclesiasti- 
cal History,  Western  Seminary 151 

lY.  The  Present  Condition,  Prospects,  Beneficent  Work,  Needs 
and  Obligations  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  by  the  Rev. 
Edward  P.  Humphrey,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Pastor  of  the  College 
Street  Church,  Louisville,  Kentucky 219 

Y.  American  Presbyterianism :  Its  Past  and  its  Future.  The 
Moderator's  Sermon  before  the  General  Assembly  of  1876, 
by  the  Rev.  Edward  D.  Morris,  D.D.,  Professor  of  Syste- 
matic Theology,  Lane  Seminary 253 


THE  PERIOD  FROM  THE 

Founding  of  the  Presbyterian  Church 

IN    THE 

UNITED    STATES    OF   AMERICA 

TO    TUB 

COMMENCEMENT  OF  THE  WAR  OF  THE  REVOLUTION. 

BY  THE 

Rev.  ALEXANDER  T.  McGILL,  D.D.,  LL.D., 

PROFESSOR  OF   ECCLESIASTICAL,   HOMILETIC  AND   PASTORAL  THEOLOGY, 
PRINCETON  SEMINARY. 


1» 


CONTENTS. 


Early  Adversities. — Discouragements. — Disaster. — Divine  Pur- 
pose.— Spontaneous  Creed. — Obscurity  of  Origin. — Francis 
McKemie. — First  Presbytery. — Identity  of  Presbyterianism. — 
Character  of  the  Founder. — McKemie  at  New  York. — Schemes 
for  establisliing  Prelacy. — McKemie  and  Cornbury. — McKemie 
preaches  in  New  York. — Arrested  and  Imprisoned. — Trial. — 
Disgrace  of  Cornbury. — Vesey  and  Trinity  Church. — First  Pres- 
byterian Church,  New  York.— Damage  from  Trinity  Churcli. — 
Extent  of  Intolerance. — Refuge  in  the  Border  Valley. — Charac- 
ter of  its  Inhabitants. — Presbyterian  Power  of  Organization. — 
More  Perfect  as  it  Increases. — Underlying  Principles. — Primary 
Court. — Suffrage  and  the  Commission. — Mutual  Concession. — 
History  of  Courts  in  Gradation. — Two  Republican  Structures. — 
Church  and  State  Contrasted. — Two  Currents  meet  at  Philadel- 
phia.— Presbyterianism  Prevails. — Men  of  New  England  Con- 
tent.— Soon  in  the  Lead. — Trial  in  "  the  Great  Awakening." — 
Excesses  of  Revivalists. — New  Brunswick  Insubordination. — 
Family  of  the  Tennents. — John  and  William  Tennent  at  Free- 
hold.— Whitfield  with  the  Tennents.— Protest  of  Robert  Cross. — 
The  Schism  begins  in  Tumult. — Overture  of  Jonathan  Dickin- 
son.— It  Fails. — The  Synod  of  New  York. — The  Protest  not 
her  Act  as  a  Synod. — Inconsistency  of  Gilbert  Tennent. — The 
Confessions  and  the  College. — Main  Cause  of  Reunion  the 
Standards. — The  Reunion  Accomplished. — The  Leading  Survi- 
vors.— Excellence  of  the  Plan. — Fitness  for  another  Stage  of 
Militancy. — Probity  with  the  Indians.— Conspicuously  Presby- 
terian Policy. — Corporation  of  the  Widows'  Fund. — Beatty  and 
Duffield. — Benevolence  and  Missions. — Patriotism  in  the  Field. 
— Its  early  Demonstrations. — Its  Enthusiasm  at  the  Frontier.. 7-C5 
6 


Centennial 

Historical  Discourses. 


FROM  THE  FOUNDING  OF   THE  PRESBYTERIAN    CHURCH 
TO  THE  WAR  OF  THE  REVOLUTION. 


PRESBYTERIANS,  unlike  others  of  all  the 
chief  denominations  in  our  favored  nation, 
came  to  the  heritage  which  they  have  by  this  time, 
with  little  or  no  incorporation  at  the  first.  Epis- 
copalians, Congregationalists,  Reformed  Dutch, 
Swedes,  Baptists,  Methodists,  Lutheran  and 
Reformed  Germans, — all  came  at  the  beginning 
in  bauds  of  some  previous  organization  or 
compact  in  the  Old  World  for  the  purpose  of 
settlement  here  in  the  way  of  colonization  or 
mission  at  least,  in  order  to  prepare  the  way  for 
transplanting  the  old  or  new  sodalities  of  other 
lands.*  The  most  remarkable  fact  which  dis- 
tinguishes our  beginning  is  that  every  attempt 

*  History  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  by  Dr.  Charles  Hodge,  Part  I., 
p.  21. 


7 


8  EARL  Y  AD  VERSITIES. 

of  this  kind  was  foiled  by  some  baleful  disaster. 
The  earliest  failure  on  record,  probably,  was 
that  of  the  Eagle's  Wing,  a  ship  freighted  for 
America  in  1637  with  ministers  and  people  from 
Scotland  and  Ireland,  to  follow  the  example  of 
the  Puritans  who  had  so  recently  embarked  from 
England  and  successfully  reached  these  shores. 
Everything  seemed  to  be  well  appointed  for 
conveying  to  a  friendly  haven  here  a  compacted 
Presbyterian  body,  in  full  shape,  as  a  model  of 
elderships  already  made,  and  sure  to  begin  a 
commonwealth  of  session,  presbytery  and  synod. 
But  the  sea  wrought  and  was  tempestuous,  and 
storms  of  heaven  compelled  them  to  return.* 
John  P>ramhall,  archbishop  of  Armagh,  who 
represented  prelacy  in  Ireland,  lashed  the  dis- 
appointed voyagers  with  ridicule  in  Latin  verse. 
But  Samuel  Eutherford,  of  Scotland,  with 
prophetic  sympathy,  saw  deeper  into  the  mys- 
tery of  that  result,  and  wrote,  in  one  of  those 
letters  which  have  a  saintly  fragrance  for  all 
generations,  "  I  would  not  have  you  think  it 
strange  that  your  journey  to  New  England  lias 
got  such  a  dash.  It  hath,  indeed,  made  my  heart 
heavy,  but  I  know  that  it  is  no  dumb  Providence, 
but  a  speaking  one,  whereby  the  Lord  speaks  his 
mind  to  you,  though  for  the  present  ye  do  not 
well  understand  what  he  saith." 

*  Eeed's  History  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  Ireland. 


DISCOURAGEMENTS. 


The  God  of  our   Others  continued,  however, 
to  speak   in  this  way.     A  phui   for  colonizing 
America  with  their  own  disciples  was  approved 
by  some  seventy   members  of  the  Westmnister 
Assembly  before  their  session  ended,  but  the  civil 
war  hindered  its  execution.*     Immediately  after 
the  battle  of  Dunbar,  Oliver  Cromwell  sent  ship- 
loads of  Scotchmen  to  be  sold  in  these  planta- 
tions for  the  expenses  of  their  passage.      And 
after  the  Restoration,  Charles  II.  sent  his  prison- 
ers from  the  risings  of  Pentland  and  Bothwell 
to  be  sold  in  like  manner  from  Boston  to  Charles- 
ton, at  any  price  that  might  pay  for  transporting 
them  to  exile.     But  all  this,  of  course,  was  cruel 
dispersion,  and  not  the  pilgrimage  of  churches. 
Schemes  in  Scotland  to  fill  emigrant  ships  with 
Covenanters  taken  from  the  mountain  gorges  and 
the  filthy  prisons,  where  only  they  could  escape 
the  dragoons  of  Claverhouse,  though  favored  by 
wealthy  patrons  and  prompted  by  the  persecuting 
government  itself,  were  always  dashed  by  some 
adversity— perhaps  a  spiteful  arrest  of  the  em- 
barkation at  the  very  point  of  departure,  crazy 
ships  which  could  not  make  the  passage,  deso- 
lating fevers  on  shipboard,  or  a  pestilential  home 
awaiting  them  at  the  place  of  their  destination, 
as  it  was  at  Port  Royal  in  South  Carolina.   Some- 
thing always  turned  up  to  baffle  and  disperse  a 

*  Webster's  Hhtory  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  America. 


10  -  DISCOURAGEMENTS. 

transported  Presbyterianism.  The  last  enterprise 
of  this  kind  was  the  saddest  of  all.  A  noble 
confessor,  of  whom  the  world  was  not  worthy, 
son  of  a  wealthy  patriot  who  had  done  much 
service  to  the  State — George  Scot  of  Pitlochie — 
for  the  crime  of  harboring  John  Welsh  in  his 
house  and  following  him  in  *'  the  preaching  of 
the  fields,"  had  been  ruined  in  his  patrimony  by 
insatiate  fines  and  broken  in  health  by  cruel 
imprisonment,  and  at  length  permitted  to  leave 
his  country  with  his  life,  provided  he  would  take 
with  him,  at  his  own  expense,  a  cargo  of  similar 
offenders  to  a  settlement  somewhere  in  East 
Jersey.  With  wase  and  persevering  aim  he 
determined  to  gather  a  Presbyterian  church 
for  his  company — Archibald  Kiddel  for  the 
minister,  John  Fraser,  a  candidate  for  the 
ministry,  elders  and  deacons  and  people  of  the 
best  condition.  Bibles  and  psalm  books  and  Con- 
fessions of  Faith.  More  than  double  the  number 
of  pilgrims  that  had  filled  the  Mayflower  at 
Plymouth,  as  near  the  beginning  of  the  century 
as  this  was  the  end,  crowded  the  ship  of  Pit- 
lochie, and  superior,  perhaps,  to  any  shipload  of 
men  and  women  that  ever  weighed  anchor  in 
passing  over  to  America,  estimating  their  social 
position  at  home  along  with  their  intelligence 
and  piety  and  devotion  to  the  liberty  of  Christ. 
But   the    depth   of  ocean    claimed    that  sainted 


DIVINE  PURPOSE.  11 

colony  for  its  own.  The  master  of  the  ship 
was  brutally  inhuman.  Their  provisions  were 
spoiled,  a  deadly  fever  seized  the  passengers  and 
dropped  them  in  the  sea,  the  great  majority,  in- 
cluding that  heroic  George  himself  and  his  wife, 
and  all  of  his  exce])t  one  married  daughter.* 

These  memorials  of  peculiar  adversity  are  now, 
indeed,  as  Rutherford  would  say,  "  a  speaking 
Providence  "  to  us,  and  we  may  understand  the 
meaning.  It  was  that  Presbyterianism,  "  whose 
seed  is  in  itself  after  his  kind,"  should  be  in- 
digenous upon  American  soil,  and  show  here  as 
nowhere  else  its  innate  and  incomparable  force 
of  organization  ;  that  no  ready-made  consolida- 
tion should  be  imported  here,  with  transplanted 
shape  or  exotic  tradition,  to  find  its  genesis  in 
accidents  of  European  history  for  all  coming 
time.  The  seeds  of  Westminster,  wafted  hither, 
as  their  field  is  the  world,  must  come  like  the 
thistledown,  detached  from  one  another  and 
floating  individually,  as  if  borne  to  be  dispersed, 
and  growing  ripe  only  to  be  scattered  abroad  by 
every  wind  that  blows.  Like  Abraham,  the 
man  of  this  faith  must  receive  in  solitary  exile 
the  promise  that  a  nation  shall  be  born  of  him 
and  all  this  wilderness  shall  be  the  possession  of 
his  principles.  It  was  appointed  of  God  that 
the  polity  of  Presbyterians,  like  each  man's  own 

*  Wodrow  and  Webster. 


12  SPONTANEOUS  CREED. 

pocket- Bible,  should  be  an  individual  conviction 
before  it  became  a  conventional  arrangement, 
gathered  with  private  judgment  from  inspired 
pages,  and  written  on  the  table  of  the  heart  be- 
fore it  had  occasion  to  bind  itself  about  the 
neck  and  adorn  the  hands  of  a  great  denomi- 
nation. 

So  it  had  sprung  forth  at  the  first  Reformation, 
when  Protestantism,  to  the  four-fifths  of  its  whole 
extension,  emerged,  a  Presbyterian  organism  in 
all  the  leading  features  of  its  visibility.  So  it 
had  sprung  forth  at  the  second  reformation,  in 
Puritan  mightiness,  with  the  overthrow  of  Tudor 
and  Stuart  prelacy  in  England,  when  the  fallow 
grounds  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  were 
])loughed  so  deeply  at  the  springtide  of  the 
English  commonwealth.  Never  before  did  truth 
so  spring  out  of  the  earth  and  righteousness  look 
down  from  heaven  at  the  work  of  symbolism, 
without  apology  to  be  made  any  more,  in  a  creed, 
and  without  a  bias  in  the  body,  religious  or  j)olit- 
ical,  as  when  the  hundred  and  twenty-one  divines, 
along  witli  thirty  statesmen  illustrious  for  ability 
and  learning,  were  summoned  to  construct  our 
standards  in  the  chapel  of  Henry  the  Seventh. 
And  now  the  virgin  soil  of  a  new  world  was  to 
have  a  like  spontaneous  growth  of  the  same  model, 
and  that  beyond  the  reach  of  any  of  that  reac- 
tionary influence  whicli  has  always  been  lurking 


OBSCURITY  OF  ORIGIN.  13 

in  the  dormitories  of  Bpiritual  despotism,  through 
the  Old  AVorld. 

Hence  that  obscurity  which  hides  from  us  the 
precise  date  and  particular  place  at  which  the 
first  Presbyterian  organization  was  made  in  our 
country.  It  is  always  hard  to  tell  the  first  blade 
of  corn  that  appears  in  a  field  over  which  the 
seed  has  been  scattered  in  season  or  out  of  season. 
Long  Island  has  claimed  it  for  Jamaica.  But 
more  than  twenty  years  before,  McNish,  the 
first  Presbyterian  minister  there,  moved  for  an 
eldership  and  a  presbytery.  Riddel,  the  min- 
ister whom  Pitlochie  selected,  was  laboring  in 
1685  at  Woodbridge.  New  Jersey  has  there- 
fore claimed  it ;  but  the  ministry  of  Kiddel  was 
transient  as  a  missionary  tour ;  he  returned  in  a 
little  time  to  Scotland.  So  Maryland  has  claimed 
it,  and  historians  generally  concede  this  claim; 
because,  in  answer  to  an  application  from  Col. 
Stevens  in  1680  to  the  presbytery  of  Laggan, 
Ireland,  Francis  McKemie  came  to  Maryland  in 
the  year  1682  and  began  to  organize  churches 
at  once.  And  yet  in  1684  he  wrote  to  Increase 
Mather  from  Elizabeth  Riv^er^  in  Virginia,  that 
his  lot  had  been  providentially  cast  among  "  a 
poor  and  desolate  people  "  there,  who  had  lost 
their  "  dissenting  minister  "  by  death  in  August 
of  1683.  It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  soon  after 
he  came  to  this  country  he  was  laboring  on  the 


14  FRANCIS  McKEMIE. 

east  brancli  of  Elizabeth  Hiver,  Norfolk  county, 
Va.,  as  the  successor  of  a  disscDting,  and  prob- 
ably Presbyterian,  minister,  whose  settlement 
there  had  been  indefinitely  earlier. 

But  beyond  all  question,  Francis  McKemie, 
the  Irishman,  born  in  Donegal  and  educated 
among  the  Scottish  universities,  began  the  organ- 
izing of  our  Church  throughout  this  land,  with 
abounding  missionary  toil  to  gather  it  and  amaz- 
ing skill  of  administration  to  settle  it.  Of  course 
he  brought  his  convictions  of  truth  and  order 
with  him  to  work  with  and  not  to  speculate 
about  as  an  alterable  Presbyterianism,  which 
might  be  made  something  other  than  it  had  been 
in  order  to  suit  American  people.  His  errand 
was  to  plant  what  he  already  knew  and  believed 
in.  And  whilst  he  wrote  for  help  in  all  direc- 
tions, to  Boston  and  to  London,  where  Congre- 
gational and  Presbyterian  unions  existed,  it  was 
to  Ireland  he  would  go  back,  through  all  perils 
of  the  sea,  to  bring  over  men  like  himself  in 
culture  and  conviction,  to  carry  on  his  work  and 
extend  it,  as  he  did  in  1705,  when  he  brought 
with  him  John  Hampton  and  George  McNish. 

The  first  presbytery  met  in  1706  at  Freehold, 
N.  J.,  soon  after  his  return  w^ith  such  recruits, 
and  he  was  the  moderator.  It  consisted  of  eight 
ministers,  including  the  one  ordained  at  that 
meeting,  with  as  many  ruling  elders  as  might  be 


FIB^T  PRESBYTERY.  15 

present,  and  who  were  present  on  the  rolls  of 
that  initial  period  (which  are  extant)  in  as  large 
proportion  as  they  have  ever  attended  since. 
The  members  were  all  Scotch-Irish,  excepting 
one,  the  pastor  of  Philadelphia,  Jedediah  An- 
drews, who  was  from  Massachusetts ;  Francis  Mc- 
Kemie,  John  Hampton,  George  McNish,  Samuel 
Davis,  John  Wilson,  Nathaniel  Taylor  and  John 
Boyd  were  the  other  ministers ;  and  the  record 
shows  that  everything  proceeded  wath  the  same 
order  and  the  same  transaction  and  the  same 
parlance  of  the  minute  as  if  the  presbytery  of 
Laggan  itself  had  been  transported  bodily  to 
Freehold,  as  they  had  resolved  that  it  should  be 
if  Usher  had  not  mitigated  at  that  very  time  the 
yoke  of  prelacy  under  which  they  were  groaning 
in  Ireland.*  To  say,  therefore,  that  American 
Presbyterianism  is  "its  own  type,"  different  from 
the  system  everywhere  else,  must  be  either  untrue 
in  the  light  of  our  authentic  annals  or  a  mere 
truism  in  historical  averment,  as  much  as  to  say 
that  French  and  Genevan  and  Holland  and 
English  and  Scotch  and  Irish  Presbyterianism 
is  each  its  own  type.  There  is  but  one  type  of 
what  is  divinely  true,  since  the  Archetype  as- 
cended to  "  give  "  a  pattern  from  "  the  mount." 
And  if  there  be  anything  j^eculiar  in  calling  this 
American,  it  must  be  the  perfect  freedom  with 

*  See  Records,  edited  by  Dr.  Win.  M.  Engles,  Board  of  Publication. 


16  CHARACTER  OF  McKEMIE. 

which  it  works  off  here  everything  that  shaped 
or  constrained  it  elsewhere  by  "  the  command- 
ments of  men." 

Francis  McKemie  himself  was  a  type  of  the 
American  minister,  more  complete,  probably, 
than  any  other  man  ever  born  and  educated  on 
our  own  soil  through  all  our  generations.  In- 
tensely individual  and  yet  many-sided,  firm  yet 
versatile,  thoughtful  and  practical,  devoted  to 
one  thing  and  occu]3ied  with  many  things,  he 
was  indeed  the  father  of  that  "  peculiar  "  body, 
the  presbyterate  of  this  denomination,  and  the 
only  "  priesthood "  we  have  except  our  people. 
Beginning  with  a  good  education,  soundness  in 
the  faith  and  soberness  of  mind,  to  try  the  re- 
ligion of  his  fathers  in  the  experiment  of  life, 
making  all  circumstances  yield  to  its  importance, 
taming  the  wilderness  with  its  culture,  and 
founding  customs,  laws  and  constitutions  of 
social  and  civil  advancement  according  to  its 
paramount  and  original  norm,  he  came  as  a  mis- 
sionary and  lived  like  an  apostle ;  aggressive, 
obeying  God  rather  than  man ;  loyal  to  Csesar, 
but  never  abashed  before  his  tribunals ;  working 
with  his  own  hands,  though  at  the  business  of  a 
merchant,  and  giving  to  the  Church  of  his  own 
substance  more  than  he  received  from  her  all  the 
days  of  his  life. 

Having  preached  some  time  at  Barbadoes  on 


CHARACTER  OF  McKEMIE.  17 

his  way  to  this  country,  it  was  at  "  the  Barbadoes 
store "  ill  this  city  that  he  preached  the  first 
Presbyterian  sermon  at  Philadelphia  in  the  year 
1692,  some  six  years  before  the  settlement  of 
the  first  pastor,  Mr.  Andrews. 

The  care  of  all  the  churches  was  upon  him ;  and 
no  itinerant  ever  journeyed  so  much  on  the  coast 
of  our  country  in  seeking  "  a  certain  people  scat- 
tered abroad  and  dispersed  among  the  people,"  and 
yet  no  man  was  ever  so  much  intent  on  establish- 
ing permanent  and  pastoral  relations  and  precise 
presbyterial  connections.  He  wrote  well,  with  a 
vigorous  pen,  and  began  well  in  using  the  press 
for  instruction  to  the  young  and  the  ignorant. 
His  first  production  was  a  catechism,  and  his 
second  a  defence  of  that  catechism  against  George 
Keith,  a  man  of  vast  notoriety  as  an  apostate 
Quaker  and  renegade  Episcopalian.  This  made 
McKemie  famous  at  Boston  as  an  author,  and 
won  for  him  the  admiration  of  Increase  and  Cot- 
ton Mather.  He  was  a  Christian  gentleman, 
withal,  of  the  most  cultivated  manners,  and  an 
orator  of  graceful  power  and  fascinating  address. 
He  always  captivated  the  rulers  of  Maryland 
and  Virginia  in  his  applications  to  them  for  the 
liberty  of  preaching,  and  he  never  failed  to  win 
his  way  with  these  accomplishments  until  he  came 
to  New  York  and  dined  with  Edward  Hyde,  the 
viscount  Cornbury,  a  full  cousin  of  Queen  Anne, 

2* 


18  LORD  CORNBVBY. 

and    grandson    of   Clarendon,   the   historian    of 
calumny. 

Cornbnry  had  come  as  governor  of  the  colony 
in  1702.  Nine  years  before  this  unfortunate 
event  a  statute  had  passed  through  the  assembly 
and  council  by  "an  artifice,"  according  to  the 
boast  of  its  author  subsequently  made,  the  whole 
assembly  being  dissenters  except  the  speaker 
himself.  By  this  act  the  territory  was  to  be 
divided  into  parishes  for  "one  good  and  sufficient 
minister"  in  each,  to  be  supported  by  taxes  levied 
on  all  the  people.  Most  of  the  people  being 
Dutch,  and  honestly  believing  that  one  "  good 
and  sufficient  minister"  might  be  Keformed  or 
Independent  just  as  well  as  Episcopalian,  and  the 
people  in  every  parish  being  authorized  to  assess 
their  own  taxes  and  choose  their  own  pastors,  no 
ruler,  governor  or  judge  dared  to  unveil  the  trick, 
and  it  remained  a  dead  letter  until  Cornbury 
came  with  "  instructions,"  as  he  alleged,  from  the 
court  or  council  of  the  queen.  These  instructions 
were,  in  substance,  that  the  "Act  of  Toleration," 
William  and  Mary,  1689,  should  not  be  extended 
to  the  province  of  New  York  without  the  express 
permission  of  the  governor.  High-church  parti- 
sans, we  know,  carried  everything  in  the  court 
of  Queen  Anne.  "The  Venerable  Society  for 
the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts" 
was  instituted  in  1701  under  such  auspices,  with 


SCHEMES  FOR  ESTABLISHING  PRELACY.         19 

amjile  funds  and  powerful  patrons,  political  as 
well  as  religious.  George  Keith,  Colonel  Morris 
and  Lord  Cornbury  were  now  factors  on  tliis  side 
of  the  Atlantic  to  nullify  the  act  of  toleration, 
establish  the  hierarchy  of  England  in  America, 
and  restore  the  intolerance  which  had  been  over- 
thrown by  the  revolution  at  home.  Simultane- 
ous with  Cornbury 's  arrival  was  the  effort  of 
Morris  to  persuade  the  colonial  assembly  of  New 
Jersey  to  give  up  their  government  to  the  Crown 
and  enact  the  same  "artifice"  for  the  Church  as 
in  New  York — a  measure  defeated  by  only  two 
votes,  one  of  a  Quaker  and  the  other  of  a  Baptist, 
and  yet  virtually  accomplished  for  thirty-six 
years  by  the  proprietaries  themselves  when  they 
surrendered  to  the  Crown  their  possessions  in  New 
Jersey  as  a  burden  more  than  a  profit.  Even 
William  Penn  was  startled  at  this  turn  of  spirit- 
ual desj)otism  when  he  found  Lord  Cornbury 
looking  after  Philadelphia,  and  the  vestrymen 
of  the  city  actually  intriguing  for  an  extension 
of  the  viscount's  authority  over  them.  A  storm 
from  the  pen  of  that  mild  philanthropist  effect- 
ually stopped  the  business  in  Pennsylvania,  when 
he  wrote  to  the  lords  of  trade  and  plantations 
demanding  that  they  should  either  buy  him  out 
or  let  him  buy  out  "the  hot  Church  party,"  as  he 
called  it. 

At  this  time  it  was  that  McKemie  and  Hamp- 


20  MCKEMIE  PREACHES  IN  NEW  YORK. 

ton  came  along  on  tlieir  way  to  Boston  in  quest 
of  more  ministers.  Their  fame  had  preceded 
them  at  New  York.  The  governor  himself 
sought  their  acquaintance.  But  with  all  his 
politeness  and  pretension,  they  would  not  ask 
him  for  leave  to  preach,  and  he  was  enraged. 
The  Dutch  and  French  churches  both  refused 
the  pulpit  to  McKemie  through  fear  of  the 
tyrant,  who  had  openly  declared  that  the  "  one 
good  and  sufficient  minister,"  in  the  act  of  1693, 
must  be  construed  as  one  episcopally  ordained 
according  to  the  Church  of  England,  so  that  no 
other  English  preaching  at  least  should  be  had  in 
New  York  without  his  consent ;  and  even  Dutch 
and  French  preaching  was  made  to  feel  that  it 
was  free  by  sufferance  and  shielded  by  its  foreign 
tongues,  rather  than  by  prescription  or  treaty 
or  law.  But  still  the  Scotch-Irish  Presbyterian 
would  preach  in  New  York,  and  that  without  the 
governor's  leave ;  and  accordingly,  in  a  j)rivate 
house  on  Pearl  street,  that  of  William  Jackson, 
a  shoemaker,  the  first  Presbyterian  sermon  was 
preached  to  as  •  many  as  would  hear  him,  with 
doors  and  windows  open,  on  the  text  Psalm  1.  23: 
"To  him  that  ordereth  his  conversation  aright 
will  I  show  the  salvation  of  God."  An  infant 
child  also  was  baptized  in  that  service.  The 
same  day  Hampton  preached  at  Newtown,  Long 
Island. 


ARRESTED  AMJ  IMPRISONED.  21 

Early  in  tlie  week  they  were  both  arrested  and 
brought  before  the  angry  and  bigoted  official. 
With  the  utmost  dignity  and  manliness  McKemie 
demanded  to  know  by  what  law  the  arrest  was 
made.  Cornbury  said  his  "instructions"  were 
the  law,  and  they  would  not  suffer  him  to  allow 
"strolling  preachers  to  spread  their  pernicious 
doctrines."  McKemie  replied  that  his  Confes- 
sion of  Faith  w^as  known  to  the  world,  that  his 
doctrines  were  sound,  the  same  as  the  articles  of 
the  Church  that  denied  him  the  right  to  preach 
them,  and  challenged  examination,  saying  that 
they  had  been  already  approved  by  the  authori- 
ties of  Virginia  and  Maryland,  and  at  Barbadoes 
also,  w^here  he  had  been  qualified  according  to 
the  act  of  toleration.  At  this  the  persecutor 
exclaimed  that  no  law  of  the  kind  belonged  to 
the  colonies,  and  no  permission,  at  any  rate  from 
another  province,  would  avail  under  his  govern- 
ment, and  he  would  know  nothing  but  his  own  in- 
structions from  Her  Majesty's  council.  McKemie 
denied  that  his  instructions  were  law,  and  again 
demanded  a  sight  of  the  statute  under  which  he 
was  arrested.  "  You,  sir,  know  law  !"  said  Corn- 
bury,  with  a  sneer,  and  ordered  him  to  prison. 

Everything  technical  in  the  form  of  commit- 
ment was  violated.  Repeated  experiments  to  cor- 
rect the  blundering  were  made,  and  each  blunder 
of  the  writ  had  to  be  paid  for  by  the  prisoners, 


22  TRIAL.— DISGRACE  OF  CORN  BURY. 

whilst  they  were  kept  all  the  while  in  jail.  It 
seemed  impossible  to  obtain  either  liberty  or  trial. 
After  two  month's  imprisonment  he  was  released 
on  bail,  and  immediately  went  back  to  attend  a 
meeting  of  presbytery  in  Philadelphia,  thence  re- 
suming his  missionary  work,  without  forgetting 
his  recognizance  at  New  York. 

At  length  a  true  bill  was  found  against 
McKemie,  Hampton  being  released.  When  the 
trial  came  on,  the  accused  was  defended  by 
counsel  and  by  himself.  Tradition  lauds  the 
eloquence  and  power  of  his  argument.  The 
prosecution  was  overwhelmed  with  defeat  and 
shame  before  judge  and  jury,  and  he  was 
unanimously  acquitted.  Yet  the  cost  to  him 
of  that  persecuting  false  imprisonment  and  the 
trial  was  enormous,  designed  to  make  him  still  a 
prisoner  for  the  debt.  And  he  narrowly  escaped 
a  second  arrest  and  the  jail  because  he  refused  to 
promise  that  he  would  not  preach  again  in  New 
York,  and  actually  did  j)reach  in  the  French 
church. 

Within  a  year  after  this  outrage  on  the  Presby- 
terians, Lord  Cornbury  was  superseded  in  office 
— not  for  his  bigoted  intolerance,  however,  but 
for  his  profligacy  and  corruption,  a  dishonored 
bankrupt  and  a  disgrace  alike  to  Church  and  State. 
And  yet  even  in  his  downfall  he  raved  against 
McKemie,  and  attempted  to  justify  the  atrocious 


VESEY  AND  TRrNITY  CHURCH.  23 

wrong  of  tliat  persecution  before  the  lords  of 
trade  and  plantations  with  the  following  descrip- 
tion of  our  venerated  founder,  which,  in  softer 
phrase,  might  be  considered  apostolic  fitness  for 
his  work  in  America:  "He  is  jack-of-all-trades: 
he  is  a  preacher,  a  doctor  of  physic,  a  merchant, 
an  attorney,  a  counselor-at-law,  and,  which  is 
worst  of  all,  a  disturber  of  governments."  The 
same  year,  1708,  McKemie  died. 

The  agitation  of  this  affair  and  other  iniquitous 
proceedings,  like  the  wrong  done  to  Jamaica  in 
robbing  her  by  fraud  and  violence  of  both  church 
and  glebe — the  most  valuable  church  property  on 
Long  Island — and  compelling  her  people  to  wait 
through  almost  thirty  years  of  expensive  litiga- 
tion to  recover  it  from  the  Episcopalians,  at  length 
disgusted  governors  and  judges  even  belonging  to 
that  sect.*  A  feud  also  had  been  occasioned  be- 
tween clergy  and  laity  by  the  greed  and  ambition 
of  Vesey,  the  first  rector  of  Trinity  church.  He 
had  been  born  and  bred  a  Puritan,  and  had  been 
sent  by  Increase  Mather  to  look  after  the  Con- 
gregationalists  about  New  York.  But  Governor 
Fletcher,  another  of  the  most  corrupt  men  of  his 
age,  offered  him  the  rectorship  and  sent  him  to 
England  for  "orders,"  although  he  was  ultimately 
installed  by  two  ministers  of  the  Reformed  Dutch 
Church.     He  was  entirely  bought  over,  and  at 

*  Dr.  Macdonald's  History  Jamaica  Church, 


24  FIRST  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH,  N.   Y. 

once  became  even  more  than  "  conformed."  His 
eye  was  taken  with  a  small  farm  called  the 
"King's  Bowerie,"  and  he  determined  to  grasp 
the  fee  simple  for  Trinity.  The  Episcopalian 
people  desired  only  a  lease,  being  opposed  to 
mortmain  not  only,  but  to  the  schemes  of  Vesey 
in  general,  having  little  confidence  in  his  in- 
tegrity or  sanctity.  But  he  triumphed  over  the 
best  and  ablest  laymen  of  his  church,  and  secured 
in  temporalty  for  the  support  and  propagation  of 
prelacy  the  largest  inheritance  of  any  particular 
church  in  America. 

In  the  confusion  of  this  quarrel  the  handful 
of  pious  men  who  had  continued  their  distinct 
meetings  for  prayer  on  the  Lord's  day,  after  the 
visit  of  McKemie,  were  encouraged  to  attempt 
the  formation  of  a  Presbyterian  church  in  the 
city  of  New  York.  Some  of  the  most  prom- 
inent citizens  belonged  to  this  band,  and  were 
soon  associated  with  numbers  increasing  from 
year  to  year.  They  determined  to  have  a  pastor 
in  1716,  and  called  James  Anderson  from  Del- 
aware, a  Scotchman  ordained  nine  years  before 
by  the  presbytery  of  Irvine  for  American  mis- 
sions— "a  graceful  orator,  a  popular  preacher  and 
a  worthy  man."  In  three  years  a  church  was 
built,  and  even  the  legislature  of  Connecticut 
ordered  a  collection  throughout  that  colony  to 
aid  the  enterprise.      In   1720  the   congregation 


DAMAGE   FROM   TRTNITY.  25 

petitioned  the  governor  and  council  for  a  charter 
of  incorporation.  But  the  opposition  of  Trinity 
churcli,  actually  appearing  by  counsel,  defeated 
them,  and  the  title  to  their  property  had  to  be 
vested  in  Anderson  himself  and  three  members 
of  the  churcli  and  by  them  transferred  to  min- 
isters of  Edinburgh  in  1730.  For  more  than 
half  a  century  the  First  Presbyterian  church  of 
New  York  city  could  not  obtain  the  right  of  a 
citizen  to  sue  and  be  sued  in  the  courts  of  tlie 
country,  owing  to  the  hostile  power  and  over- 
shadowing wealth  of  Trinity  church.  And  this 
injustice  greatly  damaged  there  the  feeble  incep- 
tion of  our  cause.  It  compelled  the  pastor  to 
meddle  too  much  with  the  temporal  concerns  of 
the  church  and  brought  dissension  into  the  bosom 
of  his  flock.  A  division  ensued  and  a  second 
congregation  was  made,  and  Jonathan  Edwards, 
at  the  age  of  nineteen,  was  called  to  the  new  or- 
ganization. But  Anderson  resigned  his  charge, 
and  Edwards  left  with  much  reo;ret  for  want  of 
competent  support.  Both  congregations  were 
soon  happily  reunited  in  the  ministry  of  Eben- 
ezer  Pemberton,  son  of  a  Boston  pastor,  and  a 
graduate  of  Harvard,  who  prospered  for  thirty 
years  in  that  conspicuous  charge,  and  left  it  a 
flock  of  nearly  fourteen  hundred  souls. 

Thus  the  peculiar  and  extreme  dispersion  to 
which   Presbyterians  were  doomed   at  the  early 


26  EXTENT  OF  INTOLERANCE. 

colonization  of  tins  country  was  followed  with 
legal  and  illegal  intolerance  precisely  at  the 
period  of  the  first  formation.  No  wonder  it  was 
so  in  the  cradle  of  that  day,  when  the  old  con- 
vening propensity  toward  presbyteries  and  syn- 
ods, which  had  troubled  the  prelacy  of  England 
so  much  for  a  century  and  a  half,  began  to  show 
itself  on  this  continent,  like  a  handwriting  on 
the  wall,  to  signify  that  spiritual  despotism  was 
finished,  that  the  union  of  Church  and  State  would 
be  impossible,  that  between  the  bondage  of  hier- 
archical tyranny  on  one  side  and  the  anarchy  of 
advisory  councils  on  the  other  a  strong  republic 
not  of  this  world  would  arise,  w^ell  comjmcted, 
like  a  stone  cut  out  without  hands,  to  become  a 
great  mountain,  filling  the  land  and  remaining 
"  an  eternal  excellency,  the  joy  of  many  gener- 
ations." 

It  was  in  "  the  Augustan  age  of  England " 
that  our  infant  Church  was  hindered  and  op- 
j^ressed  from  New  York  to  Charleston,  with  dis- 
abilities thrown  upon  her  even  in  Maryland, 
where  Episcopalians  revoked  what  Roman  Cath- 
olics had  given  of  religious  liberty. 

East  of  New  York,  and  over  almost  the  whole 
extent  of  Puritan  independency,  there  was  a  civil 
establishment  which  made  parishes  identical  with 
townships,  and  taxed  the  inhabitants  by  statute 
for  the  support  of  the  Church  as  well  as  the  road, 


EXTENT  OF  INTOLERANCE.  27 

the  prison  and  the  poorliouse.      Wlien  Presby- 
terian emigrants  came,  therefore,  to  attempt  the 
distinct  organization  of  their  churches  in  New 
EngLand,  it  was  found  that  a  constraint  and  bur- 
den beset  them  but  little  different  from  the  op- 
pression of  the  old  countries,  where  dissent  was 
liable  to  the  tithing  of  installed  religion  as  well 
as  the  voluntary  offering  of  stipend  for  its  own 
ministry  and  ordinances.     They  were  not  only 
too  poor  but  too  conscientious  to  support  with 
their  substance  a  discipline  of  the  Church  that 
was  radically  different  from  their  own  representa- 
tive system.     And  there  was  jealousy,  harsh  and 
bitter  at  times,  on  the  part  of  ministers  and  people 
among  those  theocratic  townships.     When  a  few 
Presbyterians  attempted  to  settle  at  Worcester, 
Massachusetts,  in  1718,  with  their  i^astor  Fitz- 
gerald, they  were  violently  hindered   by  a  mob 
from  building  a  house  of  worship,  and  that  mob, 
it  is  said,  was  headed  by  some  "considerable  per- 
sons" of  the   town;    and   this   intolerance  con- 
tinued  for  twenty  years   in   the  way  of  taxing 
Presbyterians  for  the  support  of  the  first  Con- 
gregational church  of  that  town,  until  most  of 
them   removed  to  the  western  frontier  of  New 
York. 

A  whole  presbytery,  called  by  tradition  the 
Irish  Presbytery,  and  calling  themselves  the 
Presbytery  of  Boston,  consisting  of  ten  ministers 


28     REFUGE  IN  THE  BORDER   VALLEY. 

at  least  besides  Lemercier  of  the  French  church 
in  that  city,  became  so  quietly  and  completely 
pressed  down  and  out  by  the  policy  of  New  Eng- 
land in  the  first  part  of  the  last  century  that 
history  can  hardly  find  the  date  either  of  its 
origin  or  its  extinction.*  Exceptional  places 
like  Londonderry  and  Rutland,  where  some  di- 
vision of  the  township  by  courts  of  law  or  acts 
of  the  colonial  assembly  afforded  relief,  were 
ver}^  few  during  the  whole  period  of  Presbyterian 
settlement. 

Indeed,  there  was  but  one  strip  of  country  in 
all  our  broad  land  where  presbytery  could  stretch 
itself  without  molestation  from  the  jealousy  of 
spiritual  powers,  and  that  was  the  border  of  a 
savage  wilderness.  It  happened,  in  the  goodness 
of  God,  that  most  of  this  border  was  the  Jez- 
reel  of  America,  rich  and  beautiful  through  its 
whole  extent  of  Cumberland  Valley  in  Penn- 
sylvania and  Shenandoah  in  Virginia,  and  yet 
the  bloodiest  battle-ground  we  have  ever  had 
since  the  beo-innino;  of  our  American  civiliza- 
tion.  There  the  Scotch-Irish  Presbyterians  were 
suffered  to  pour  the  streams  of  immigration  and 
set  up  their  tabernacle  without  a  challenge,  be- 
cause there  they  had  to  stand  guardsmen  for  the 
nation  thi'ough  nearly  the  whole  of  a  century. 
The  cabins  there  might  worship  as  they  pleased. 

*  Colman's  MSS.,  Massachusetts  Historical  Society's  collection. 


CHARACTER   OF  ITS  INHABITANTS.  29 

A  cordon  of  blood  and  fire  might  build  its  own 
altars  and  have  the  war-whoop  of  the  Indian  for 
a  diapason  through  its  own  cathedrals.  The  ap- 
athetic peace  of  Quaker  authorities  in  Pennsyl- 
vania and  the  chevalier  pride  of  Episcopal 
authorities  in  Virginia  united  in  giving  counte- 
nance to  Presbyterians  all  along  the  North 
jNIountain,  while  the  trail  of  the  savage  and 
smoke  of  his  wigwam,  the  deadly  rifle  and  ruth- 
less tomahawk,  made  it  undesirable  to  have  the 
"  one  good  and  sufficient  minister "  in  every 
parish  ordained  episcopally  and  supported  by 
"a  tax  on  all  the  inhabitants"  of  poor  and  per- 
ilous frontier  stockades. 

But  there  presbytery  flourished.  There  a  pure 
gospel  was  preached  by  such  men  as  Craighead 
and  Thompson  and  Steele  and  Elder  with  a 
pocket-Bible  in  one  hand  and  a  loaded  rifle  in 
the  other.  There  and  then,  as  always  in  critical 
or  eventful  times,  heroes  grew  on  the  bench  of 
ruling  elders.  There  Chambers,  at  the  peril  of 
his  life  and  fortune,  gathered  a  whole  community 
into  his  own  fort,  and  when  other  populations 
fled  the  valley,  stood  with  indomitable  courage 
at  the  outposts  of  civilization  in  his  town,  and 
almost  alone  rolled  back  the  rush  of  savage  in- 
humanity.* And  there  it  was  that  Armstrong, 
a  ruling  elder  in  Carlisle,  drew  to  him  Hugh 

*  Irish  and  Scotch  Early  Settlers,  etc.,  by  George  Chambers. 
3* 


30    PRESBYTERIAN  POWER   OF  ORGANIZATION: 

Mercer,  a  young  physician  from  Scotland,  and 
projected  that  intrepid  action  at  Kittanning 
which  delivered  the  valley  from  savage  incursion, 
and  stands  in  history,  as  it  did  in  the  opinion 
of  AVashington,  the  most  valorous  and  timely 
discomfiture  of  the  foe  ever  achieved  in  warfare 
with  the  Indians.  Armstrons;  lived  to  become 
the  intimate  friend  of  Washington,  by  whose 
influence  he  was  made  a  general  of  the  Revolu- 
tion and  a  member  of  the  old  Congress.  And  his 
son  it  was  who  carried  Mercer  in  his  arms  from 
the  battle-ground  of  Princeton,  became  a  senator 
in  Congress,  ambassador  to  France  and  secretary 
of  war  in  the  administration  of  Madison. 

It  will  now  be  admitted  that,  in  view  of  all  the 
disadvantages  of  our  beginning  and  opposition 
to  our  first  progress,  there  must  be  rare  dynamic 
virtue  in  the  creed  which  could  gather  people  so 
dispersed,  and  organize  quickly  and  well  a  body 
like  the  Presbyterian  Church,  that  has  always 
grown  consolidated  in  proportion  as  it  has  grown 
vast.  In  1707  it  had  eight  ministers  and  tAvelve 
churches.  In  1717  it  had  more  than  double  this 
number  both  of  ministers  and  churches;  and  the 
perfect  harmony  with  which  it  went  into  a  synod 
that  year  and  agreed  upon  the  subordination  of 
three  presbyteries  into  which  it  was  resolved,  and 
drew  to  this  plural  a  fourth  in  Long  Island  which 
had  been  Independent  more  than  Presbyterian 


MORE   PERFECT  AS  IT  INCREASES.  31 

ten  years  before,  shows  a  primal  force  in  some 
great  principles  underlying  our  whole  conception 
of  the  Church.  No  one  can  doubt,  with  our 
primitive  records  before  him,  that  the  first  eccle- 
siastical movement  which  we  relate  this  day  was 
due  to  intelligent  ideas  that  had  been  maturing 
for  centuries,  and  began  to  work  on  this  hemi- 
sphere anew,  and  yet  normal  as  if  they  had  be- 
gun again  at  the  suburbs  of  Geneva  or  colleges 
of  Edinburgh;  and  just  as  little  can  we  doubt 
that  the  assimilation  of  new  material  from  Hol- 
land, France,  Germany,  Wales  and  Sweden,  as 
well  as  New  England,  was  more  and  more  com- 
plete as  our  system  extended  its  fold.  It  was 
better  Presbyterianism  in  1717  than  in  1707; 
better  still  in  1729,  when  "the  adopting  act" 
was  voted  and  the  numbers  had  grown  to  nearly 
double  of  what  they  were  at  the  formation  of 
the  synod ;  better  in  1741,  when  the  rupture  of 
ministerial  communion  made  each  wing  of  the 
separation  vie  with  the  other  in  devotion  to  the 
adopted  standards  of  the  whole ;  and  better  yet 
when  the  schism  was  healed  in  1758  with  a  reunion 
which  made  it  impossible  that  the  Church  could 
ever  split  again  for  the  same  causes  of  division. 

This  great  catholic  tendency,  which  is  the  main 
characteristic  of  the  Presbyterian  system  when  it 
is  fairly  understood,  arises  from  a  few  elementary 
principles  that  were  all  at  work  in  the  first  plant- 


32  UNDERLYING  PRINCIPLES. 

ing,  and  for  almost  half  a  century  before  an 
express  formulation  by  the  act  of  1729,  which 
approved  of  Presbyterian  church  government 
as  well  as  adopted  the  Confession  of  Faith  and 
the  catechism.  Indeed,  these  principles  origin- 
ated the  Eeformation  in  Scotland  itself,  and  were 
covenanted  in  the  body  of  her  discipline  again 
and  again  before  the  Westminster  Assembly  could 
gather  and  build  with  them  a  directory  in  their 
Confession  of  Faith.  These  are  chiefly  the  fol- 
lowing : 

1.  The  Church,  in  its  visible  form,  is  a  com- 
pany of  parents  and  children  which  answers  to 
the  divine  purpose  in  Christ  before  the  world 
began,  to  prepare  a  "fullness"  for  him  through 
all  remaining  time  that  will  represent  him  on 
earth  while  he  represents  it  in  heaven. 

2.  This  representative  body  is  made  such  by 
the  constant  communication  of  gifts  and  graces 
from  himself  through  the  agency  of  the  Holy 
Spirit. 

3.  These  gifts  and  graces  are  diversified  to  an 
indefinite  extent,  no  two  members  on  earth  being 
j)erfectly  alike  in  this  endowment. 

4.  Consequently,  the  larger  this  body  is  made, 
which  the  Holy  Ghost  inhabits,  the  more  com- 
plete the  diversity  reflected,  and  therefore  the 
more  fully  is  this  image  of  Christ  delineated 
among  men. 


THE  PRIMARY  COURT.  33 

5.  Officers  commensurate  with  the  need  of 
this  body  through  every  age  are  all  given  of 
God  with  warrant  in  his  word,  the  ascension  gifts 
of  a  glorious  Master,  and  all  of  them  representa- 
tives emphatically  and  in  a  triple  sense,  repi'e- 
senting  him  to  the  Church  and  the  Church  to 
him,  and  both  him  and  the  Church  to  the  whole 
world. 

6.  These  officers,  besides  the  function  of  each 
individual  according  to  his  order,  hold  jurisdic- 
tion by  assemblies,  only  in  the  name  of  Christ, 
for  the  exercise  of  any  power  bestowed  upon  the 
Church. 

7.  Assemblies,  through  all  their  varieties  and 
gradations,  are  to  be  compacted  together,  always 
converging  in  some  higher  unity  which  is  one  of 
ultimate  appeal  and  general  authority. 

8.  This  ultimate  and  highest  tribunal,  by 
whatever  name  it  may  be  called,  is  the  primary 
court,  being  next  and  nearest  the  Head  in  the 
scope  of  its  aims  and  representation  of  ail  the 
churches,  so  that  if  there  be  power  in  the  Church 
anywhere  lodged  which  has  not  been  specifically 
distributed  by  a  formal  constitution,  this  high 
court  is  the  depository  of  such  power,  to  meet 
the  exigences  that  cannot  be  foreseen  or  pro- 
vided for  by  any  written  constitution. 

9.  Election  of  officers  must  be  in  the  people 
of  each  particular  church,  who  are  free  to  choose 


34  SUFFRAGE  AND  THE  COMMISSION.      " 

among  the  candidates  approved  of  God  and  im- 
bued with  his  Spirit,  suffrage  always  abiding 
where  the  Holy  Ghost  abides,  the  great  commis- 
sion of  the  ministry  really  resting  on  the  bosom 
of  the  whole  Church,  and  no  one  succession  of 
individual  men,  who  are  all  given  to  the  Church 
only  to  serve  her,  the  transmission  of  office  by 
those  already  invested  being  always  a  relative 
and  not  absolute  necessity,  qualified  by  the  greater 
necessity  of  ability  and  faithfulness. 

These  are  the  principles  which  had  shaped  the 
Presbyterian  Church  in  every  land  and  among 
English-speaking  people  just  as  long  before  "  the 
adopting  act"  of  America  as  our  Centennial  of 
civil  independence  has  been  coming  since  that 
adoption.  In  Scotland  a  General  Assembly  ex- 
isted before  either  synods  or  presbyteries  were 
formed,  as  a  council  of  apostles,  elders  and 
brethren  was  held  in  Jerusalem  before  any  in- 
termediate judicature  had  been  formed,  for  the 
reference  of  causes  from  particular  churches. 
Our  presbytery  at  Freehold  or  Philadelphia  one 
hundred  and  seventy  years  ago  was  the  General 
Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  America. 
It  was  a  "  representation  of  all  the  particular 
churches  in  this  denomination ;"  it  was  "  the  bond 
of  union,  peace  and  mutual  confidence"  at  home 
and  the  organ  of  "correspondence"  with  churches 
abroad.     It  "  issued  all  references  and  appeals  " 


HISTORY  OF  COURTS  IN  GRADATION.  35 

and  exercised  all  the  authority  of  review  over 
courts  of  record  below  it;  and  beyond  this,  it  often 
did  the  session's  work  in  particular  churches, 
and  exercised  the  right  of  "  eminent  domain  "  in 
bringing  its  authority  to  bear  on  evils  and  dis- 
orders which  it  was  wise  to  redress  before  any 
record  could  be  made  below  or  any  complaint 
and  appeal  could  have  time  to  go  up  above.  In 
ten  years  more  that  General  Assembly  was  called 
a  synod,  and  this  body  exercised  in  turn  all  the 
prerogatives  now  invested  in  our  supreme  judi- 
catory by  the  constitution ;  and  more  than  this, 
it  often  did  the  work  of  presbyteries,  erecting  or 
dividing  particular  churches,  ordaining,  transla- 
ting and  judging  ministers,  adopting  standards — 
the  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith  and  Direct- 
ory in  1729,  just  as  the  General  Assembly  of  Scot- 
land had  done  in  1645 — without  sending  down 
overtures  to  the  presbyteries  on  the  subject.  This 
privilege  was  a  grant,  subsequently  made,  in  the 
way  of  distribution,  vesting  rights  below  which 
are,  of  course,  irrevocable,  from  the  reservoir  of 
power  inherent  in  that  supreme  assembly  which 
most  fully  represents  Christ  himself  and  all  the 
particular  churches  of  this  denomination,  as  it 
was  at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century  in 
the  "  Barrier  Act "  by  the  General  Assembly  of 
Scotland. 

We  may  now  see  that  two  republican  structures 


36  TWO  REPUBLICAN  STRUCTURES. 

grew  up  together  on  this  continent  during  the 
eighteenth  century,  the  converse  of  each  other, 
but  all  the  more  concordant  and  helpful  to  each 
other  on  this  account — Church  republicanism 
and  State  republicanism.  Very  much  alike  in 
being  both  the  ordinance  of  God,  and  both  con- 
structed largely  by  Presbyterian  hands,  and  both 
containing  the  democratic  element  in  large  pro- 
portion, yet  they  differ  essentially  in  the  order 
and  place  they  gave  to  real  democracy.  The 
Church  begins  in  heaven  ;  the  State  begins  on 
earth.  The  Church  begins  with  unity  ;  the  State 
■with  multiplicity.  The  Church  is  founded  on 
one  divine  "  Rock ;"  the  State  is  founded  on 
many  minute  constituencies  of  men.  The  Church 
secures  her  safety  and  the  liberty  of  her  people 
by  the  exercise  of  power  in  but  one  branch  of  it, 
committed  to  men,  the  judicial,  and  that  modified 
by  the  equities  of  paternal  discretion ;  the  State 
secures  her  safety  and  the  liberty  of  her  people 
by  the  co-ordinate  exercise  of  power  in  tliree 
branches,  legislative,  judicial,  and  executive,  with 
as  little  of  the  paternal  as  possible.  The  Church 
is  complete  only  in  the  representation  of  all  the 
gifts  and  graces  emanating  from  her  Head  and 
flowing  down  to  the  skirts  of  priesthood  in  her 
people  of  every  name  and  place  and  age,  making 
it  impossible  for  any  true  Presbyterian  to  be  a 
bigot  and  out  of  co-operative  union  with  a  single 


TWO  CURRENTS  MEET.  37 

feature  of  Jesus  wherever  it  is  seen  ;  the  State 
may  be  complete  in  but  one  fragment  of  an 
empire,  an  island  as  well  as  a  continent,  a  revolted 
province  or  colony  as  well  as  a  subjugated  king- 
dom annexed;  so  that  it  is  impossible  for  a  true 
citizen  to  be  cosmopolitan,  as  a  true  Christian  is 
catholic,  or  to  travel  from  one  country  to  another, 
without  being  an  alien.  Insubordination  is  death 
to  the  State,  rebellion  being  "  as  the  sin  of  witch- 
craft ;"  but  the  resistance  even  of  conscience  to 
behests  of  the  Church  may  weaken  her  energies 
and  disturb  her  peace,  but  cannot  touch  her  life, 
which  is  "  hid  with  Christ  in  God."  These  two 
systems  were  never  so  thoroughly  compared  and 
sharply  contrasted,  and  yet  inseparably  held,  as 
they  were  by  our  fathers  in  the  forming  period 
of  our  Church,  between  1706  and  1789. 

Simultaneous  with  this  movement  of  two  struc- 
tures was  the  movement  of  two  currents  within 
the  province  of  ecclesiastical  formation.  One 
was  from  the  North  and  the  other  from  the  South, 
and  they  met  at  Philadelphia.  The  Northern 
current  issued  from  a  theocracy  in  New  England, 
which  was  then  at  the  best  of  its  experiment, 
having  blended  with  a  civil  administration  the 
government  and  discipline  of  the  Church  and 
rivaled  the  beautiful  theocracy  of  Calvin  at 
Geneva  in  the  century  before ;  and  like  that 
Helvetian   model,  it  was  transient  as   beautiful, 

4 


38  PBESB YTEEIANISM  PREVAILS. 

leaving  the  Church  it  had  cherislied  to  weakness 
for  schism  and  Socinianism,  and  the  State  it  had 
sanctified  to  laughter,  through  all  coming  genera- 
tions, at  the  "  blue  "  regulations  which  governed 
forefather  times.  The  current  from  the  South 
was  all  Scotch-Irish,  with  a  little  Welsh  in  its 
element,  made  up  of  rivulets  which  owed  alike 
their  dispersion  and  confluence  in  the  wilderness 
to  bitter  intolerance  of  Church  and  State  united 
in  the  Old  World,  and  was  now  swelling  to  a  vol- 
ume which  would  henceforth  dash  every  scheme 
that  would  establish  religion  by  law  and  divest 
the  Church  of  government  or  discipline  pre- 
scribed by  her  own  Lord  alone.  There  was 
some  ridging  and  foaming  when  these  currents 
met  to  form  that  river  which  has  made  glad  the 
city  of  our  God,  although  the  Southern  current, 
like  the  Gulf  Stream  in  the  Atlantic,  prevailed 
with  its  direction,  and  made  the  Independent 
Presbyterian  Andrews,  of  Philadelphia,  who 
had  written  to  Dr.  Colman,  of  Boston,  about  the 
overture  of  John  Thompson  for  subscription  to 
the  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith,  offered 
first  in  1727  and  pressed  to  the  vote  in  1729, 
that  he  "  had  been  in  hopes  they  would  hear  no 
more  of  it,"  and  Dickinson,  of  Elizabeth,  who 
had  published,  in  strictures  upon  it,  that  such  a 
subscription  would  be  like  the  wall  about  Laish 
— nothing  of  protection,  but  a  snare — were  soon 


MEX  OF  NEW  ENGLAND  CONTENT.  39 

more  than  contented,  both  of  them.  And  all  the 
others  of  that  stream — Pemberton,  Pierson,  Mor- 
gan, Elmer,  Webb  and  Pumry,  with  the  churches 
of  East  Jersey  and  Long  Island — yielded  and 
owned  with  glad  reminiscence  that  it  i:)roved  to 
be  all  the  benefit  its  authors  had  j^romised.  And 
no  wonder  they  were  so  easily  satisfied  with 
Westminster  at  that  time,  when  the  Northern 
current  bore  on  its  bosom  Cambridge  and  Say- 
brook  platforms  going  to  j^ieces — synods  and 
rulino-  eklers  in  rafts  which  could  be  floated  on 
only  by  the  stronger  withs  of  Presbyterian  or- 
ganization . 

Instead  of  checking  the  influx  of  Puritan 
ministers  and  people,  the  formal  adoption  of  our 
standards  increased  the  number,  until,  within  one 
generation,  from  being  as  one  to  seven,  it  became 
almost  one  to  three,  in  the  proportion  of  minis- 
ters. Instead  of  depressing  the  energy  and  in- 
fluence of  New  England  men  to  acquiesce  reluc- 
tantly in  the  subscription  wdiich  Irish  and  Scotch 
members,  in  their  strong  majority,  had  imposed, 
they  became  honored  guides  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church  through  the  stormy  and  eventful  midst 
of  the  last  century.  It  might  even  be  called  the 
Dickinson  age  of  our  Church.  Scotch  and  Irish 
ministers  never  dominated  as  a  party  in  their 
successful  structure  of  our  system.  The  leading 
authors  were  from  New  England,  with  the  ex- 


40  TRIAL  OF  THE  GREAT  AWAKENING. 

ception  of  Gilbert  Tennent,  whose  book  and 
pamphlets  issued  from  the  press,  it  was  said,  "  as 
bees  from  a  hive.''  Not  to  speak  of  Edwards  in 
this  connection,  Jonathan  and  Moses  Dickinson 
and  Joseph  Morgan,  of  Freehold,  were  prolific 
authors;  and  the  first  of  these  three  had  no 
superior  in  handling  the  press  of  that  day  for 
the  service  of  that  generation  and  the  genera- 
tions following. 

But  scarcely  had  the  fabric  of  this  fair  con- 
struction been  completed  with  so  much  harmony 
of  council  and  adornment  of  ability  and  learn- 
ing, piety  and  zeal,  when  it  was  subject  to  a 
strain  which  has  no  parallel  in  history.  Lest  it 
should  be  exalted  above  measure  by  the  con- 
sciousness of  strength  in  its  unity  and  orthodoxy 
and  force  of  discipline,  it  was  humbled  and 
almost  ruined  by  the  agitations  of  that  "  great 
awakening  "  which  was  so  worldwide  in  the  days 
of  Whitfield  and  Wesley,  Davenport,  Edwards, 
Dickinson  and  the  Tennents.  Perhaps  the  tem- 
per of  its  organization  was  too  rigid  for  such  a 
time,  and  the  attitude  of  fencing  against  the 
laxity  which  was  coming  in  from  abroad  had 
induced  a  reserve  and  suspicion  that  were  ex- 
cessive in  the  body  of  our  old  synod.  Probably 
also  many  of  its  best  ministers  and  people  were 
too  indiscrim.inate  in  challenging  a  revival  of 
religion  which  had  so  much  of  tumult  and  dis- 


EXCESSES  OF  THE  REVIVALISTS.  41 

order  in  its  manifestations,  radicalism  in  its  pre- 
tensions and  fanatical  bitterness  in  its  jndgments. 
Certainly,  also,  there  was  much  declension  of 
practical  goldliness,  considering  the  recent  high 
and  perfectly  harmonious  attainment  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church  in  purity  of  doctrine  and 
simplicity  of  order  and  worshiiD.  But  these  were 
faults  which  only  "  the  meekness  and  gentleness 
of  Christ "  in  the  unction  of  his  ministers  could 
deal  with.  The  wrath  of  man,  however,  unhap- 
pily attempted  to  work  the  righteousness  of  God 
when  Samuel  Blair  and  Gilbert  Tennent  under- 
took to  convert  the  Churcli  instead  of  the  world 
with  their  burning  zeal  and  wonderful  abilities. 

They  began  with  acrimonious  invective.  Irri- 
tated by  the  strictures  of  slow  but  sober-minded 
brethren  on  the  enthusiasm  of  Whitfield  and 
his  co-workers,  the  most  ardent  of  whom  was 
Gilbei't  Tennent — their  pretensions  to  know  pre- 
cisely who  were  converted  among  the  people  and 
who  were  unconverted  among  the  ministers,  and 
their  encouragement  of  strange  disorder  in  the 
meetings  for  worship,  the  hideous  outcries,  bodily 
agitations  and  convulsive  fits  of  "  the  falling 
work,"  alike  in  the  camp-meeting  and  the 
church — Tennent  and  Blair,  at  the  open  synod, 
charged  their  fellow- members  in  formal  "  jDresen- 
tation  "  papers,  read  before  a  crowd  of  j)romiscu- 
ous  followers,  with  unregeneracy  of  heart,  heresy 

4* 


42  GILBERT  TENNENT  ESPECIALLY. 

of  doctrine  (for  allowing  our  own  happiness  to 
be  a  motive  at  all  in  obedience  to  God),  phari- 
saic  hypocrisy  and  dead  formality  in  their  min- 
istrations. In  the  same  year  Gilbert  Tennent 
preached  at  Nottingham  a  sermon  on  "  the  dan- 
gers of  an  unconverted  ministry,"  which  was 
filled  with  the  most  malign  denunciation  of 
evangelical  men  that  fanaticism  could  express  in 
our  language — a  sermon  published  twice  at  Phil- 
adelphia and  once  at  Boston,  and  scattered  like 
the  leaves  of  November  among  the  churches.  In 
this  "Nottingham  sermon"  the  people  were 
advised  to  judge  their  ministers  and  assured  that 
they  were  capable  of  discerning  the  unconverted 
among  their  shepherds,  and  that  it  was  their  duty 
to  forsake  the  ministry  of  such  and  quit  hearing 
any  man  whose  preaching  did  not  profit  their 
souls  according  to  their  own  judgment  and  taste. 
Along  with  this  incendiary  libel  sown  broadcast 
through  the  land  were  actual  intrusions  into  the 
churches  of  such  men  as  Alison  and  Boyd,  Gilles- 
pie and  Thomson,  not  one  church  in  the  whole 
presbytery  of  Donegal  escaping  rupture;  divis- 
ions made  and  gloried  in,  despite  the  solemn  and 
repeated  warning  of  synod.  Added  to  all  was 
open  disobedience  to  the  order  of  the  synod  that 
a  liberal  education  should  be  required  of  candi- 
dates for  the  ministry — either  a  diploma  from 
some  approved  college   or   an  examination  sus- 


NE  W  BR  UNS  WICK  INS  UB OBDINA  TION.  13 

tained  by  the  synod — before  any  presbytery  could 
be  allowed  to  take  the  candidate  on  trials  for 
license  and  ordination.  The  presbytery  of  New- 
Brunswick  was  no  sooner  created  in  17o8  than 
it  began  to  protest  against  this  order,  and  actually 
proceeded  to  license  John  Rowland,  with  total 
disregard  of  the  injunction.  The  synod,  having 
a  right  to  judge  of  the  proper  qualification  of  its 
own  members,  refused  to  acknowledge  license  and 
ordination  so  irregularly  made,  and  refused  a  seat 
to  any  one  so  introduced.  The  dispute  occa- 
sioned by  this  anarchy  involved  other  points  of 
deviation,  at  which  "the  Brunswick  party  "  began 
to  swerve  with  radical  jarring.  The  value  of  all 
external  calling  to  the  ministry  was  questioned, 
the  enthusiasm  of  an  inward  call  was  held  to  be 
sufficient,  and  the  power  of  a  synod  to  govern 
a  presbytery  with  anything  stronger  than  mere 
advice  was  denied.  Antinomian  tendencies  were 
developed  on  every  liand,  and  the  preaching  of 
duty  was  denounced ;  learning  and  soundness 
and  regularity  of  life  were  contemned  as  inade- 
quate vouchers  for  minister  or  member  unless  he 
could  tell  exactly  when  and  how  he  was  con- 
verted, and  retain  the  assurance  of  this  reality 
as  distinctly  in  his  knowledge  as  he  could  "  a 
thouoht  of  his  mind  or  a  stab  in  his  flesh." 

It  was  well  for  the  Church  that  the  life  of  this 
party  was  the  family  of  the  Tennents.    They  had 


44  JOHN  AND  WILLIAM  AT  FREEHOLD. 

a  scliool  wliicli  was  very  good,  but  very  poor — a 
log  college — with  their  father  at  the  head  of  it, 
the  best  of  teachers  in  the  last  century,  but  ex- 
tremely straitened  in  his  means  and  immeasu- 
rably scant  of  tlie  resources  and  appointments 
which  belonoed  to  the  colle2;es  of  New  Ens-land. 
Unfortunately,  the  requirement  of  a  diploma  or 
air  examination  by  the  synod  itself,  in  order  to  be 
taken  on  trials  for  licensure,  seemed  to  overlook 
too  much  the  great  service  of  that  Nesliaminy 
schooling,  and  mentioned  only  the  chartered  col- 
leges of  this  and  other  lands.  The  senior  Wil- 
liam Tennent,  master  of  the  log  college  and  father 
of  four  illustrious  ministers — Gilbert,  William, 
John  and  Charles — had  come  from  Ireland  or- 
dained a  priest  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church,  and  had  renounced  Episcopacy  in  com- 
ing here  mainly  because  of  objections  to  the  use 
of  liturgical  forms  in  worship.  He  had  little  or 
no  sympathy  with  the  tumult  of  the  time,  except 
as  he  lived  in  his  sons  and  pupils,  and  burned 
because  they  were  oifended  wdtli  the  imaginary 
slight  of  Neshaminy  by  the  synod.  John,  the 
third  son,  had  finished  his  course  at  Freehold, 
N.  J.,  before  he  was  twenty-five  years  old,  in  1732, 
and  in  a  ministry  of  scarcely  two  full  years  had 
gathered  a  harvest  for  his  Lord  in  that  "poor 
distracted  Scottish  church "  where  he  saw  the 
first  fruits  of  the  great  revival  which  was  so  soon 


W  HIT  FIELD   WITH  THE  TENNENTS.  45 

to  overspread  the  continent.  His  brother  Wil- 
liam succeeded  him  in  that  charge  with  similar 
success,  and  a  very  peculiar  fame  for  the  super- 
natural in  the  course  of  his  life.  Charles  was  the 
youngest  of  these  brothers,  and  settled  in  the 
presbytery  of  New  Castle,  where  his  influence 
reinforced  the  New  Brunswick  party  beyond  tlie 
limits  of  that  "  protesting  "  presbytery.  * 

But  the  strong  man  of  this  great  family  was 
Gilbert,  the  eldest  son,  fourteen  years  old  when 
he  came  to  this  country,  taught  everything  by  his 
father,  whom  he  also  assisted  in  the  log  college, 
and  the  first  Presbyterian  minister  whose  whole 
education  for  the  office  had  been  received  in 
America.  When  George  AVhitfield  arrived  at 
Philadelphia  in  1739,  he  hastened  to  Neshaminy 
to  imbibe  the  lessons  of  that  school  and  the 
spirit  of  the  prophets  there.  Gilbert  Tennent 
was  the  man  of  all  others  whom  he  most  ad- 
mired as  a  preacher  and  as  a  guide  in  adapting 
his  own  resplendent  ministry  to  the  character  of 
the  churches  and  the  conversion  of  the  American 
j)eople.  To  him  he  was  indebted  also  for  most 
of  the  mistakes,  antipathies  and  illusions  which 
marred  his  career  in  this  land.  The  fame  of 
Whitfield,  however,  became  that  of  the  Tennents 
also  in  consequence  of  this  intimacy  and  com- 
panionship, giving  immense  advantage  with  the 
people  to  any  side  of  a  contest  on  which  Gilbert 


46  PRO  TEST  OF  ROBERT  CR  OSS. 

was  ensrased.  The  censoriousness,  the  intrusions, 
the  distraction  of  parishes,  pretensions  to  judge 
the  hearts  of  men,  the  defiance  of  synodical 
authority, — all  these  and  other  fanatical  excesses 
were  so  glorious  for  a  while,  in  the  company  of 
Whitfield  and  the  Tennents,  that  reflecting- men 
who  had  rejoiced  in  the  revival  at  first  beheld 
with  consternation  the  true  glory  of  their  infant 
Church  departing.  Discouraged,  disorganized, 
left  by  the  multitude  and  having  no  longer  the 
"many"  to  sustain  them  in  forms  of  judicial 
process,  they  determined  to  meet  the  extremity 
with  a  measure  that  corresponded  with  its  law- 
lessness. 

At  the  synod  of  1741,  Eobert  Cross,  the  suc- 
cessor of  Andrews  in  Philadelphia,  offered  a 
"protest"  against  the  "protesters"  or  Brunswick 
party,  which  enumerated  with  great  precision 
and  power  the  many  evils  which  that  party  had 
brought  upon  the  Church  and  which  threatened 
her  destruction,  proposing  to  renounce  all  further 
connection  with  those  brethren  until  they  would 
confess  and  abjure  the  errors  of  their  way.  It 
was  placed  on  the  table  for  signatures,  and  a  scene 
of  the  utmost  confusion  followed.  It  is  said 
the  moderator  left  his  chair,  and  the  galleries, 
crowded  with  excited  people,  who  generally  sym- 
pathized with  the  new  side,  turned  the  confusion 
into  u|>roar.     Each  side  claimed  to  be  the  synod, 


0  VEIiTURE  OF  J  ON  A  THAN  DICKINSON.  4  7 

and  with  much  difficulty  order  was  restored 
enough  to  count  the  signatures  to  this  protest 
and  the  numbers  opposed.  It  appeared  that  the 
former,  called  henceforth  the  Old  Side,  had  the 
majority,  and  the  latter,  called  the  New  Side, 
withdrew.  Thus  the  schism  of  the  last  century 
began  ;  and  we  must  mark  the  finger  of  God  for 
good  even  in  this  little  thing — that  the  act  of 
separation  was  a  muss  and  not  a  vote.  Half  a 
generation  might  heal  the  one,  a  whole  generation 
it  would  take  to  heal  the  other.  As  it  was  well 
ordered  that  the  whole  combination  of  tlie  dis- 
turbing party  hung  upon  the  character  and  will 
of  Gilbert  Tennent,  so  it  was  well  ordered  that 
the  protest  wdiich  meant  to  revolutionize  the 
Church  w^ith  an  overture  rather  than  to  conserve 
her  w^itli  the  process  of  her  own  discipline  should 
be  in  no  proper  technical  sense  an  act  of  the 
constituted  synod. 

Providentially,  also,  the  whole  presbytery  of 
New  York  was  absent  from  that  meeting  of  the 
synod.  Next  year,  1742,  it  appeared,  and  Jona- 
than Dickinson,  one  of  its  members,  became  the 
moderator.  He  at  once  proposed  that  the  sepa- 
rated brethren  of  the  previous  year  should  be 
restored  to  their  seats — not  because  he  thought 
they  were  blameless,  for  he  condemned  their 
excesses;  not  because  they  had  become  either 
penitent  or  apologetic,  for  they  were  going  on  to 


48  IT  FAILS. 

license  others  without  regard  to  the  authority  of 
the  synod,  and  to  rend  the  churches  in  every 
direction  and  beyond  all  bounds  with  active 
intrusion  and  malign  aspersion  of  the  pastors  ;  but 
because  the  whole  transaction  of  1741  had  been 
irregular  and  unconstitutional.  The  excluded 
brethren  ought  to  have  been  arraigned  by  their 
presbyteries  or  by  the  synod  itself  with  process 
of  discipline,  and  ejected  only  with  a  full 
and  faultless  record.  But  he  failed.  The 
majority  objected  with  keen  force  that  absentees 
of  the  preceding  year  should  not  assume  the  posi- 
tion of  judges  and  seek  to  reverse  what  might 
have  been  better  done  if  they  had  been  present. 
Trial  according  to  forms  of  j^rocess  in  the  Direc- 
tory was  impossible  when  the  offenders  were 
leadins:  the  multitude  and  insistino;  to  the  last 
count  that  they  were  the  synod  themselves.  And 
even  a  reconsideration  of  the  act  could  not  be 
moved  when  it  had  never  been  voted,  and  was 
now  a  rupture  in  fact  without  a  record  in  order. 
There  was  no  remedy  but  return  of  the  excluded 
party  to  a  better  mind.  Thus  the  schism  was 
continued. 

For  three  years  the  Dickinson  proposal  was 
pressed  on  the  synod,  and  conferences  w^ere  held, 
with  alternate  overtures  to  the  synod  and  to  the 
excluded  members.  The  latter  had  been  brought 
by  Aaron  Burr  and  otliers  to  the  point  of  con- 


THE  SYNOD  OF  NEW  YORK.  49 

fessing  with  regret  nearly  all  the  charges  of  ir- 
regularity and  wrong,  demanding  in  return  that 
the  protest  of  Cross  should  be  withdrawn  from 
the  files  and  records  of  the  synod.  But  this  w^as 
refused  for  the  simple  reason  that  all  its  allega- 
tions were  true,  and  truer  every  year.  At  length 
(1745)  the  presbytery  of  Xew  York  formed  itself 
into  a  synod  and  took  upon  its  own  roll  the 
exscinded  presbytery  of  Kew  Brunswick  and  all 
others  in  their  following.  This  was  done  with 
little  or  no  heat  of  resentment  or  antagonism  in 
any  particular,  but  the  technical  point  of  restor- 
ing to  visible  unity  with  the  Presbyterian  Church 
a  body  of  men  wdio  were  mad  with  enthusiasm, 
but  sound  in  the  faith  and  pre-eminently  gifted 
for  the  service  of  Christ.  It  was  expressly  and 
thoroughly  understood  in  this  formation  that 
the  New  York  synod,  as  it  was  now  called,  w^as 
one  with  the  synod  of  Philadelphia ;  not  only  in 
an  honest  adherence  to  the  Westminster  stand- 
ards, but  also  in  every  particular  of  decency  and 
order  which  had  been  specified  in  the  dividing 
jirotest  of  1741.  Its  attitude  from  the  beginning 
was  that  of  reunion  ;  and  if  it  had  only  repressed 
Vv'ith  a  firm  hand  "  the  intrusions "  with  which 
the  Brunswick  party  continued  to  agitate  and 
divide  the  churches  adhering  to  "  the  Old  Side," 
there  would  not  have  been  three  instead  of  thir- 
teen years  more   of  separation.     Here    was   the 


60  3fEEKNESS  OF  THE  OLD  SYNOD. 

standing  cause  of  discord,  making  every  year  an 
ultimate  reconstruction  of  parishes  and  presby- 
teries ill  case  of  reunion  more  impracticable. 
The  swelling  tide  of  prosperity  which  favored  the 
synod  of  New  York,  and  the  halo  of  brilliant 
men  and  sainted  evangelists  which  adorned  her 
ministry  at  the  time,  hid  from  the  world  the  sin 
of  this  obliquity,  and  left  many  a  precious  light 
in  the  territory  of  the  old  synod  to  be  quenched 
by  reason  of  distraction. 

The  glory  of  our  old  synod  of  Philadelphia 
through  all  these  times  of  excitement  and  con- 
vulsion was  the  "  ornament "  of  her  "  meek  and 
quiet  spirit."  When  Gilbert  Tennent  and  Sam- 
uel Blair  insulted  her  to  the  face  at  the  first  with 
charges  of  unregeneracy,  unfaithfulness  and  op- 
position to  the  Spirit  of  God,  she  adopted  unan- 
imously and  sent  forth  to  the  churches,  as  well  as 
enjoined  on  her  ministers,  the  pastoral  minute 
requiring  them  to  take  heed  to  themselves  and 
search  and  see  whether  these  things  were  so. 
When  John  Thompson,  her  great  conservative 
and  defender  by  the  press,  took  up  the  task  of 
her  vindication  in  his  imperishable  book  on 
church  government,  he  did  it  with  lowliness  of 
spirit,  modesty  and  candor  and  consistency, 
throughout,  which  were  in  singular  conti'ast  with 
the  haughty  contempt  of  the  "  Nottingham " 
sermon  and  its  volleys  of  subsequent  defence. 


INCONSISTENCY  OF  GILBERT  TENNENT.         51 

So  it  was  through  all  the  ensuing  conferences 
had  between  the  synods  until  the  reunion  came 
about  in  1758.  Though  her  desolated  and  frag- 
mentary churches  could  not  be  restored  by  any 
organic  union,  and  though  her  great  protest  of 
1741  must  be  affirmed  at  every  conference  as  the 
truth  of  history  and  the  moderation  of  justice  to 
the  character  of  both  parties,  she  was  willing  to 
meet  the  chronic  demand  for  its  withdrawal  by  a 
jDhrase  which  yielded  no  principle,  but  kept  the 
fact  for  all  future  generations  in  a  state  of  nega- 
tive solution.  It  was  that  the  protest  of  1741 
"  was  not  the  act  of  the  synod."  On  this  phrase 
the  two  bodies  agreed,  and  the  main  dispute  was 
over. 

Another  cause  of  reunion  was  the  complete 
humiliation  of  Gilbert  Tennent.  That  "son  of 
thunder"  had  discomfited  himself,  and  the  strong 
staff  of  the  disturbing  party  was  broken.  He 
was  the  father  •  of  controversy  in  the  American 
Presbyterian  Church.  Not  by  any  false  doctrine 
avowed  nor  by  any  scandal  coming  on  his  life 
nor  by  any  paralysis  of  intellect  and  power  of 
speech  nor  by  loss  of  zeal  for  the  cause  of  Christ 
in  the  salvation  of  souls,  but  by  the  extreme 
severity  of  his  temper  in  religious  controversy, 
he  fell  from  leadership  in  this  Church.  It  awak- 
ened suspicion  of  eri'or  when  he  was  seen  to  be 
tossed  continually  to  the  verge  on  this  side  and 


52        INCONSISTENCY  OF  GILBERT  TENNENT. 

that  of  the  vast  area  he  trod  in  disputation.  It 
arrayed  against  him  the  fears  of  all  considerate 
men,  whether  timid  or  courageous ;  and  the  man 
who  excites  our  fears  never  could  govern  Pres- 
byterians. And,  above  all,  it  confounded  himself 
with  a  maze  of  inconsistencies  from  which  there 
could  be  no  recovery.  He  had  voted  in  the 
synod  to  approve  of  the  admirable  paper  on  the 
controversy  between  him  and  David  Cowell  re- 
specting the  foundation  of  moral  obligation,  and 
yet  soon  afterward  flung  that  paper  back  upon 
the  synod  as  heretical,  in  permitting  our  own 
happiness  in  any  sense  to  mingle  with  the  glory 
of  God  in  motives  of  obedience.  He  had  as- 
sailed Count  Zinzendorf  and  the  Moravians  with 
pamphlets  as  well  as  speeches  of  vehement 
censure,  in  which  every  objection  was  a  con- 
demnation of  his  "  Nottingham  sermon "  and 
a  justification  of  all  that  Robert  Cross  embodied 
in  the  memorable  "  protest  of  1-741."  He  had 
confessed  in  a  letter  of  penitence  to  Jonathan 
Dickinson  the  great  errors  of  his  extravagance 
enumerated  in  that  protest,  and  had  this  letter 
widely  published  among  the  churches  at  the 
very  time  a  third  edition  of  the  Nottingham  ser- 
mon was  coming  from  the  press  in  Boston  under 
his  own  direction.  Pamphleteers  on  both  sides 
of  the  Atlantic  were  not  slow  to  blazon  "  Gilbert 
vs.  Tennent;"   and   so  great  was  the  prejudice 


HIS  CONFESSIONS  AND  THE  COLLEGE.  53 

against  him  of  good  men  abroad  that  the  mission 
of  Samuel  Davies  and  himself  to  Great  Britain 
for  the  College  of  New  Jersey  would  have  been 
a  failure  if  he  had  not  humbly  retracted  the 
Nottingham  sermon  in  London,  although  the 
last  conspicuous  exploit  of  his  pen  just  before 
leaving  home  was  a  fresh  demand  upon  the  synod 
of  Philadelphia,  as  a  term  of  reunion,  that  the 
protest  of  1741,  which  had  complained  of  that 
sermon,  should  be  pronounced  null  and  void  and 
virtually  untrue.  Not  in  his  lifetime  and  as- 
cendency could  there  have  been  a  reunion  if  he 
had  not  published  his  Irenicum,  confessing  his 
inconsistency  and  extravagance  as  he  doffed  the 
great  coat  and  leathern  girdle  in  which  he  had 
thundered  from  Delaware  to  Maine,  and  con- 
sented to  retire  as  an  ordinary  pastor  to  the 
Second  church  of  Philadelphia. 

Another  cause  of  reconciliation  which  mightily 
constrained  the  greater  to  seek  reunion  with  the 
less  at  that  time  was  the  virtual  transference  of 
the  log  college  from  Neshaminy  to  Princeton, 
whither,  some  two  years  before  its  consummation, 
Burr  and  seventy  students  had  removed  the  Col- 
lege of  New  Jersey  from  Newark.  The  jealousy 
of  all  the  Tennents  had  been  buried  in  the  grave 
of  their  father  at  the  very  time  this  college  be- 
gan with  the  presidency  of  Jonathan  Dickinson 
at  Elizabeth,  and  the  prosperous  academies  of 


54  3IAIN  CAUSE  OF  EE UNION. 

Pennsylvania  and  Maryland  and  Delaware,  near- 
ly all  of  tliem  nurtured  by  the  Old  Side,  came  to 
be  coveted  and  courted  as  feeders  for  tlie  Colleoe 
of  New  Jersey. 

But  the  great  cause  which  secured  and  has- 
tened a  reunion  was  precisely  that  "  wall  "  which 
had  surrounded  both  these  bodies  all  the  while 
of  their  apparent  separation,  which  Dickinson 
himself  had  said,  in  1729,  would  fall  "if  so  much 
as  a  fox  would  go  over  it " — the  Westminster  Con- 
fession of  Faith,  Larger  and  Shorter  Catechisms 
and  Directory  of  Government,  Discipline  and 
Worship.  This  palladium,  as  well  as  bulwark 
around  them,  rallied  all  the  parties,  restrained 
the  factions,  gathered  the  fragments  without  any 
loss,  and  proved  once  for  all  to  the  ages  that  a  full 
creed  is  not  a  dividing  wedge,  but  the  very  handle 
of  concord,  and  a  witnessing  Church  that  testifies 
for  Christ  in  her  own  words  to  the  whole  extent 
of  her  attainment  will  never  be  left  "  a  portion 
for  foxes."  It  was  the  centennial  time  of  our  old 
standards,  and  never  had  they  been  hailed  with 
glory  and  enthusiasm  on  every  side  as  when  his- 
tory came  to  make  up  the  results  of  a  world-wide 
revival. 

The  reunion  was  accomplished  in  1758,  and  the 
name  then  given  to  the  General  Assembly  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church  was  "  The  Synod  of  New 
York  and  Philadelphia."     A  few  months  before 


"  THE  HE  UNION  ACCOMrLIi>IIEI).  55 

that  coiisuinniation  Jonathan  Edwards  died ;  a 
few  months  before  him  his  son-in-law,  Aaron 
Burr,  had  died ;  Jonathan  Dickinson  ten  years 
before  him.  Andrews,  Brainerd  and  Robinson 
had  also  departed,  three  apostolic  men  and  mis- 
sionaries, one  to  Philadelphia,  another  to  the 
Indians  and  a  third  to  Virginia.  So  had  Samuel 
Blair,  "  the  incomparable,"  and  John  Thomson 
"the  conservative." 

What  a  roll  of  renowned  and  sainted  men  of 
the  interval  might  be  called  who  had  been  written 
on  this  side  and  that  of  the  division  on  earth,  and 
were  by  that  time  summoned  away  to  the  Church 
of  the  first-born  that  are  written  in  heaven !  But 
a  host  remained  for  a  new  era — the  Alisons,  the 
Tennents,  the  Finleys,  the  Smiths,  Prime,  Pem- 
berton,  Pierson,  Bodgei-s,  Boan,  Miller,  Spencer, 
Beatty,  Bostwick,  Buell,  Bobert  Cross,  John  Blair, 
James  Brown,  George  Duffield,  and  that  young 
man  who  had  charmed  with  his  eloquence  the 
intolerance  of  the  South,  and  prophesied  of 
Washington  at  Braddock's  defeat,  and  gathered 
endowment  for  Princeton  from  the  opposite 
hemisphere,  and  was  just  now  to  enter  on  the 
presidency  of  Nassau  Hall— Samuel  Davies, 

One  hundred  ministers  began  to  assemble  in 
the  synod  now,  and  to  represent  nearly  twice 
that  number  of  nominal  churches.  Gilbert  Ten- 
nent  was  the  first  moderator,  Bobert  Cross  the 


56  MUTUAL  CONCESSION. 

second.  "  Protesters  "  on  both  sides  of  the  quarrel 
and  schism  were  now  successors  to  each  otiier  in 
harmonious  line.  If  Gilbert  was  first  in  the 
honor  of  presiding  over  the  united  body,  Robert 
was  first  in  constructing  the  platform  on  which 
he  was  elevated.  The  plan  of  reunion  embodied 
every  plank  of  princij^le  on  which  the  Old  Side 
had  been  standing  for  seventeen  years,  and  every 
item  of  additional  incorporation  would  have  been 
at  any  time  assented  to  if  it  had  been  overtured 
without  demanding  the  formal  canceling  of  their 
"  protest." 

It  was  indeed  ordered  well  that  mere  "|:)rotest" 
should  not  be  allowed  again  to  disrupt  a  synod. 
It  was  equally  well  defined  that  the  work  of 
God's  own  Spirit  in  the  ministrations  of  truth 
should  not  be  gainsaid  because  of  paroxysms  in 
the  flesh  which  might  incidentally  attend  it. 
The  existence  of  a  college  among  us  on  this 
side  of  New  England  was  now  conceded  as  a 
sufiicient  reason  for  the  synod  to  entrust  the 
presbyteries  with  indej^endent  judgment  on  the 
qualifications  in  learning  of  candidates  for  the 
ministry.  And  the  sad  disruption  of  so  many 
churches  by  the  "  intrusions  "  chargeable  on  the 
Brunswick  party  in  th€  day  of  their  heat  was 
accepted  as  a  fact  which  could  not  be  rem- 
edied in  reconstruction,  beyond  enactment  that 
the  territorial  integrity  of  parishes  should  not  be 


EXCELLENCE  OF  THE  PLAN.  57 

disturbed  in  that  way  again.  With  few  excep- 
tions, the  Old  Side  were  content  with  this  adjust- 
ment, because  it  was  seen  upon  every  hand  that 
good  had  been  brought  out  of  that  evil,  and  in 
that  very  thing  divine  Pi-ovidence  had  rebuked 
the  grudging  reluctancy  with  which  so  many  con- 
gregations of  the  Old  Side  resisted  the  work  of 
church  extension  against  the  tide  of  ever-swell- 
ing populations.  In  short,  the  distinctive  gains 
to  the  New  Side  in  that  memorable  compact  of 
reunion  were  all  in  the  direction  of  the  Old  Side 
as  well — Westminster  endorsed  again  ;  order  re- 
stored ;  revivals  discriminated  ;  majorities  vindi- 
cated ;  minorities  made  free ;  sound  faith  and 
good  life  accredited  as  true  religion  without  in- 
quisition after  mental  states  and  a  prescribed 
order  of  experiences.  Never  was  there  a  more 
perfect  union,  never  a  more  noble  and  frank 
avowal  on  both  sides,  and  never  a  more  complete 
symbol  of  reconciliation,  than  the  plan  of  reunion 
in  1758.  Of  course  it  distinguished  between 
essential  and  non-essential  things  in  the  submis- 
sion of  conscience  to  that  bond.  But  it  stipulated 
for  no  liberty  beyond  this ;  no  reduction ;  no 
revision  ;  no  compliance  with  expediency.  And 
surely  it  had  no  change  of  the  constitution  kept 
in  abeyance  or  in  secret  on  either  side,  to  be 
sprung  upon  the  whole  Ciuirch  as  soon  as  it 
could  be  welded  together  in  the  reconstruction. 


58  PROBITY  WITH  THE  INDIANS. 

Thus  restored  and  harmonized  again,  the 
Church  of  our  fathers,  with  a  banner  streaming 
at  full  length  in  every  fold,  advanced  to  another 
stage  of  militancy,  for  which  her  equipment, 
that  had  been  gained  in  the  conflicts  of  principle, 
and  structures  of  Liberty,  civil  and  religious — 
twin  towers,  that  she  alone  had  studied  how  to 
build  distinctly  and  together — prepared  her  to 
act  as  no  other  denomination  could  act  in  those 
great  events  which  filled  the  sequel  of  a  century 
from  her  beginning  in  this  land — missions,  wars 
and  institutions. 

For  a  whole  generation  she  had  to  fight  the 
savages  on  her  border  almost  alone.  The  pro- 
prietaries of  Pennsylvania  and  early  governors 
and  councils  of  this  commonwealth  strangely 
allowed  the  Scotch-Irish  Presbyterians  in  her 
frontier  valley,  with  very  little  help  in  men  or 
money,  to  bear  the  brunt  of  a  warfare  the  most 
cruel  that  is  recorded  in  the  annals  of  our 
country.  And  yet  from  the  sentries  of  that  ex- 
posed and  slaughtered  community  there  always 
went  forth  the  most  benignant  friends  of  the  poor 
Indians  to  enforce  the  faith  of  treaties  and  keep 
the  reservations  from  intrusion  and  give  them  the 
light  and  peace  of  the  gospel.  When  the  Quaker 
government  of  Pennsylvania  outwitted  the  Dela- 
ware Indians,  in  17o7,  with  a  bargain  for  as  much 
land  "  to  extend  back  in  the  woods "  as  a  man 


CONSPWUO IISL  r  FRESH  YTKRIA  S  POLICY.       59 

could  walk  over  iii  a  day  and  a  lialf,  that  small 
but  powerful  tribe  was  irritated  greatly  when  the 
white  men  secured  by  advertisement  and  lavish 
bounty  a  pedestrian  who  could  walk  as  fast  as  an 
Indian  could  run,  but  they  had  no  remedy.  When, 
again,  the  Six  Nations  made  their  memorable 
cession  at  Albany  in  1754  to  the  same  authorities 
of  what  the  latter  had  been  carefully  indefinite 
to  describe  in  metes  and  bounds  which  the  sava- 
ges could  comprehend,  and  all  middle  Pennsyl- 
vania was  taken  as  a  part  of  the  claim,  with  a 
manifest  purpose  to  push  it  on  to  the  setting  sun, 
the  red  man  was  enraged ;  and  Braddock's 
defeat  the  year  after  was  but  the  beginning  of 
horrors  which  could  be  stiiyed  only  with  an 
honest  concession  that  the  summit  of  the  Alle- 
ghany Mountain  should  be  the  limit  of  that  Albany 
grant.  On  the  other  hand,  the  border  valley  of 
the  Presbyterians  was  no  sooner  constituted  a 
county,  Cumberland,  than  its  authorities  enlisted 
with  eager  determination  to  repress  all  dishonest 
dealing  witli  the  Indians.  When  a  few  rash 
adventurers,  mostly  Germans,  but  wath  some 
Scotch-Irish,  moved  into  Sherman's  valley  and 
other  places  beyond  the  Kittochtinny  or  North 
Mountain,  before  the  cession  of  that  region  at 
Albany,  the  Indians  complained  of  the  encroach- 
ment;  and  instantly  Benjamin  Chambers  and 
George  Croghan,  with  other    magistrates  and    a 


60  CORPORATTON  OF  THE  WIDOWS'  FUND. 

considerable  force  of  men  from  the  Presbyterian 
cliiirches,  urged  by  their  ministers,  crossed  the 
mountain  in  1742  and  constrained  the  settlers  to 
quit  their  clearings,  and  even  burn  their  cabins 
in  sight  of  the  Indians,  that  justice  might  be 
done  and  savage  resentment  avoided.*  Such  was 
the  uniform  spirit  of  equity  toward  the  Indians 
on  the  part  of  a  people  whom  certain  flippant 
chroniclers  describe  in  this  connection  as  "  a 
pertinacious  and  pugnacious  race,"  whose  trespass 
on  the  Indian  territory  was  the  main  provocation 
which  leagued  the  Indians  with  the  French  in 
the  bloody  wars  of  that  age.  As  they  were  the 
sufferers  chiefly,  they  have  been  falsely  accused 
as  the  transgressors.  The  provincial  govern- 
ment of  Pennsylvania,  in  its  jealousy  of  Scotch- 
Irish  energy  and  adventure,  its  impotency  in  the 
hands  of  cunning  knaves  who  contrived  treaties 
and  got  for  a  price  the  privilege  of  selling  rum 
to  the  Indians,  has  to  this  day  escaped  the  just 
condemnation  which  history  finds  out  in  search- 
ing for  the  causes  of  those  horrid  calamities  that 
made  so  much  bloody  ground  on  the  bosom  of 
this  commonwealth. 

"  The  Widows'  Fund,"  the  oldest  corporation 
for  the  relief  of  desolated  families  in  America, 
began   its   benignant  work   among  the    necessi- 

*  See    Trkh   and   Scotch   Early   Seltlern   of  Pemmjlvania,   by  Plon. 
George  Chambers,  1856. 


BFJATTY  AND  DUFFIELD.  61 

tons  on  tlie  frontier.  In  1700  it  sent  to  Great 
Britain  Charles  Beatty,  who  had  been  the 
Irish  peddler  that  in  attempting  to  sell  his 
wares  to  William  Tennent  of  Nishaminy,  by 
praising  them  in  Latin,  did  it  so  well  that  the 
noble  teacher  was  taken  and  Beatty  himself 
was  taken  with  the  conviction  that  he  ought 
to  stay  there  and  study  for  the  ministry.  His 
success  in  gathering  funds  for  the  corporation 
was  wonderful.  Even  the  General  Assembly  of 
Scotland  ordered  a  collection  to  help  his  cause 
throughout  the  churches.  Butwdien  he  returned 
home,  a  dispute  arose  with  Provost  Smith,  of 
Philadelphia,  respecting  the  distribution  of  these 
funds — whether  the  disbursement  should  be  a 
measure  of  broad  philanthropy  to  comprehend 
all  the  distressed  who  had  been  driven  from  their 
homes  by  the  Indians,  or  a  special  distribution 
to  the  Presbyterian  sufferers  whose  husbands, 
brothers  or  sons  had  perished  in  war  with  the 
savages.  At  length  it  was  determined  by  the 
synod  of  1766,  in  accordance  with  a  request  of 
the  corporation,  that  he  and  George  Duflfield,  of 
Carlisle,  should  explore  the  condition  of  the 
whole  border  to  learn  its  necessities,  and  espe- 
cially the  spiritual  condition  of  the  frontier  set- 
tlements, and  also  what  opportunities  might  be 
had  for  giving  the  gospel  to  the  Indians.  Beatty 
was  full  of  missionary  zeal,  having  been  much 


62  PATBWTISM  IN  THE  FIELDS. 

with  Braiiierd  and  deeply  interested  in  the  In- 
dian school  supported  long  and  liberally  by  the 
synod.  So  far  as  can  now  be  ascertained,  he  was 
the  first  Protestant  minister  to  preach  beyond 
the  Alleghanies,  when  he  preached  in  1758,  at 
Fort  Duquesne,  to  the  troops  of  Forbes'  army 
that  took  possession  of  that  post  after  it  was 
evacuated  by  the  French.  And  now  in  this 
mission  of  the  synod  he  was  the  first  to  preach 
on  the  soil  of  that  magnificent  State,  Ohio,  hav- 
ing penetrated  the  wilderness  some  hundred  and 
thirty  miles  and  obtained  on  the  Muskingum  a 
knowledge  of  the  Indians  to  encourage  the  es- 
tablishment of  permanent  missionary  enterprise. 
It  is  therefore  a  fact  worthy  of  commemoration 
that  when  we  say,  "  Corporations  have  no  soul," 
this  one,  the  oldest  of  all  among  Presbyterians, 
stands  an  illustrious  exception,  the  first  thing  to 
incite  the  synod  of  New  York  and  Philadelphia 
to  move  alike  in  foreign  and  domestic  missions 
whilst  in  pursuit  of  its  own  distinct  and  legit- 
imate object,  the  succor  of  "poor  and  distressed" 
families  of  Presbyterian  ministers. 

That  same  meeting  of  the  synod  which  sent 
Beatty  and  Duffield  to  reconnoitre  settlements 
on  the  frontier  and  open  a  pathway  to  the  Indian 
towns  beyond  was  a  jubilant  meeting,  full  of 
gratulation,  loyalty  and  patriotism.  It  voted  an 
address  to  His  Majesty   for  the  repeal   of   the 


ITS  EARLY  DEMONSTRATIONS.  63 

Stamp  Act.  And  these  brethren  found  the 
whole  border  full  of  the  same  enthusiasm. 
Every  field,  every  stump,  was  vocal  with  the  same 
rejoicing.  Indeed,  fields  and  stumps  have  always 
been  the  scenic  joy  of  this  denomination. 

"  The  unaccountable  humor,"  as  McKemie 
called  it,  of  the  American  people  to  live  in  the 
country  and  cultivate  the  lands  rather  than  dwell 
in  villages  and  build  up  cities,  has,  in  spite  of  his 
remonstrance,  remained  the  humor  of  the  Pres- 
byterian people.  They  have  been  emjiliatically 
from  the  beginning  a  rural  church.  It  would 
seem  as  if,  in  this  characteristic,  the  stability  of 
earth  itself  has  been  imparted  to  this  ecclesias- 
tical system  in  making  the  bulk  of  her  pastors 
chorepiscopal  bishops  in  our  assemblies,  and  mak- 
ing agricultural  work  the  sinew  both  of  money 
and  virtue  in  defending  the  institutions  of  the 
Church  and  the  liberty  of  the  land.  No  sign  of 
the  times  could  be  more  at  war  with  our  tradi- 
tions and  ominous  of  weak  degeneracy  than  the 
ambition  of  ministers  to  quit  the  country  for  the 
city,  as  if  a  rural  parish  were  fit  onl}^  to  begin 
with  and  a  metropolitan  pulpit  were  the  goal  of 
aspiration,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  were  in  waiting 
for  the  work  of  "  translating  ministers "  rather 
than  keeping  them  to  "  make  the  wilderness  and 
the  solitary  place  glad  for  them."  Perish  the 
policy  which,  either   in  education   or   industry, 


64  JTS  KXmrslASM  AT  niK  FROSTlKJi. 

would  lunko  oiir  youth  tlisooutoutoil  with  a  home 
iu  the  oouutry  I  When  tho  rago  of  t;!ii;uii'lv<m  or 
frivolities  of  tashion  have  wa.^ied  our  ehuivhes 
aud  euipiievl  our  t'anes  iu  the  town.  ho\v  ot'ten 
hare  nuuihei-s  beeu  re[daeed  hy  tVesli  iiu[>oria- 
tions  froui  the  eouutry  of  well  eateehi/ed  believ- 
oi^s  who  brought  with  theui  revivals  of  fauiily 
i*eligiou,  aud  thus  beeauie  "restorei-s  of  paths  to 
dwell  iu  '  I 

AVe  kuow  what  kiiul  of  soldiei-s  oiu'  Presl\v- 
teriaus  of  the  tiehl  have  sent  to  every  war  that 
has  beeu  a  war  of  defeuee.  r>efore  the  Oei'lara- 
tiou  of  ludepeudeuee  at  riuladelpliia  was  wriiteu 
it  begtui  to  be  eoniposed  iu  the  tields  oi'  the  valley 
aud  aloug  the  uiouutaiu  tops,  froui  ^leekleuburg 
to  Carlisle  aud  from  Carlisle  to  llauuahstowu, 
over  the  Alleghany  ^louutaius  aud  aiuoug  tho 
elearing-s  of  Westmorelaud  eoiuity.  No  histor- 
ical iiuosse  eau  rob  the  Presbyteriau  yeomanry 
of  their  credit  iu  having  sown  with  broadcast 
unauimity  the  seminal  tlunight.  if  not  phrases 
also,  of  that  immortal  doenmeut.  It  was  there- 
fore a  philosophical  justice  in  history  that  the 
only  minister  of  auy  denomination  who  signed 
it  was  John  AVitherspoou,  the  representative  of 
Presbyterian  education  and  a  regular  teacher  of 
theology  at  Princeton  half  a  century  before  Archi- 
bald Alexander  was  electcil  to  the  otlice.  ^lore 
than  a  year  before  he  signed   it   the  tidings  oi' 


ITS  ESTIIUSIASM  AT  THE  FRONTIER.  65 

bloodshed  at  Lexington  and  Concord  started 
companies  from  the  frontiers  of  our  Church, 
and  mainly  from  the  churches  of  the  Cumber- 
land Valley,  to  anticipate  Washington  himself 
at  the  siege  of  Boston,  and  make  the  Revolution 
quick  as  it  was  inevitable.  Veteran  captains  were 
found  there  quite  ready,  and  numerous  almost  as 
ministers  and  elders,  and  all  of  them  eager  again 
to  muster  the  host  and  fire  its  patriotic  ardor. 

But  "the  commencement  of  the  war  of  the 
Eevolution  "  is  the  end  of  my  task,  and  I  desist 
with  filial  reverence  and  affection  at  a  centre  of 
patriotism  even  on  the  border  of  our  civilization 
when  that  war  began. 

6* 


THE  PEEIOD   FROM  THE 
WAR    OF    THE    REVOLUTION 


ADOPTION  OF  MEASURES  FOR  THE  ORGANIZATION 
OF  THE  GENERAL  ASSEMBLY. 

T7'75-V7&6. 

BY  THE 

Eev.  SAMUEL  M.  HOPKINS,  D.D., 

HYDE  PKOFESSOK  OF  ECCLESIASTICAL  HISTORY  AND  CHURCH  POLITY, 
AUBURN  SEMINARY. 


CONTENTS. 


I. 

PAGE 


Eeligious  coiHlition  of  the  Colonies  in  1775.-The  various  De- 
nominations existing—Baptists  and  Methodists,  Roman  Cath- 
olics and  Quakers.-Episcopacy  as  Established  in  the  Colonies. 
-Character  of  the  Missionaries  from  England.-rersecution 
of  the  Presbyterians  in  Virginia.-Fidelity  of  the  Colonial 
Episcopal  Clergy  to  the  British  Goyernment.-Disappearance 
of  Episcopacy  after  the  Declaration  of  Independence.-Epis- 
copacy  and  Monarchy.-Case  of  the  Eev.  Jacob  Duche.-First 
Prayei-  in  Congress  after  the  Declaration.-Kelapse  of  Mr. 
Duche 

II. 

Growth  of  Presbyterianism  in  America  in  the  Eighteenth  Cen- 
tury -Universal  Patriotism  of  the  Presbyterian  Clergy.- 
Presbvterianism  and  Civil  Liberty.-Loyalty  of  the  Colonial 
Presbyterians  to  the  British  Throne.-Pastoral  Letter  of  May, 
1775  J-Kev  Samuel  Davies  on  the  Death  of  George  IL— Dis- 
tinction between  the  Claims  of  the  King  and  the  Parliament. 
—The  Presbyterian  Clergy  continue  to  Pray  for  the  King.— 
The  Georgium  Sidus.-Dr.  John  Eodgers  and  the  Patriot 
Prayer-meeting.-Presbyterian  Clergy  in  the  Field.-Dr.  John 
Witherspoon.-The  Ecclesiastical  Characteristics  and  other 
Writin-s.-Becomes  President  of  Princeton  College  and  Mem- 
ber of  Congress.-His  Zeal  for  Liberty.-The  War  a  "Pres- 
byterian Rebellion."-Not  a  Religious  War.-The  Hessians. 

— Svnodical  Action  on  the  War 

•'  G9 


71 


89 


70  CONTENTS. 

III. 

PAGE 

Condition  of  tlie  Presbyterian  Church  at  the  Close  of  the  War. — 
Increase  of  her  Ministry  and  Zeal  for  a  High  Education. — Her 
Superiority  to  any  other  Church  at  that  Period. — The  Synod's 
Declaration  in  Favor  of  Eeligious  Equality. — Struggle  in  Vir- 
ginia for  Exclusive  Privileges. — Patrick  Henry's  Bill  for  a 
General  Tax. — Origin  of  the  Hanover  Presbytery. — Samuel 
Morris, — Morris'  Eeading-house. — "  Lutherans." — Act  of  Uni- 
formity and  Toleration  Act  in  America. — Eev.  Mr.  Robinson 
in  Hanover.-^Eev.  Samuel  Davies. — Eesistance  of  the  Pres- 
bytery of  Hanover  to  Mr.  Henry's  Bill. — Concluding  Struggle 
and  Triumph  of  Religious  Liberty — Sale  of  the  Virginia  Glebe 
Lands 116 

IV. 

Meeting  of  the  First  Synod  after  the  Close  of  the  War. — Pas- 
toral Letter  of  Congratulation. — Dearth  of  the  Scriptures. — ■ 
First  English  Edition  published  in  America. — Plan  of  Dr. 
Jolin  Rodgers  for  Supplying  the  Discharged  Soldiers. — Letter 
of  General  Washington  to  him  on  the  Subject. — Miscellaneous 
Action  of  the  Synod. — Initial  Steps  toward  the  New  Consti- 
tution.— Conclusion 137 


From  the  War  of  the  Revolution 

TO  THE 

Organization  of  the  General  Assembly. 


I. 

COXDITION  OP  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH  AT 
THE  OPENING  OF  THIS  PERIOD   (1775). 

rpHE  storm  of  tlie  Revolutionary  war  broke 
-■-  upon  a  people  more  universally  peaceable, 
loyal,  intelligent  and  Christian  than  any  other 
in  the  history  of  the  world.  With  few  excep- 
tions the  entire  population  belonged,  by  volun- 
tary adherence,  to  some  one  of  the  various 
fractions  of  the  Christian  Church. 

Speculative  atheism  there  was  none ;  of  subtle 
infidelity  hardly  a  trace ;  and  the  coarse  and 
brutal  infidelity  of  Paine  and  his  school  was  only 
beginning  to  make  its  way  amid  the  lower  stratum 
of  society.  Nowhere  was  education  more  uni- 
versal ;  nowhere  was  the  Bible  more  the  book  of 
the  home,  or  the  sanctuary  dearer  to  the  heart ; 
nowhere  were  manners  simpler,  habits  more 
frugal,  domestic  virtue  and  official  integrity  more 
sacred ;    nowhere    were    the    minister   and    the 

71 


72  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHURCH 

schoolmaster  in  liio;lier  esteem.  Takinof  the 
colonies  at  large,  the  Church  existed  in  as  pure 
a  state  as  had  ever  been  reahzed  in  this  her 
mixed  and  militant  condition. 

But  she  existed  in  the  form  of  a  multitude  of 
sects — all  the  chief  sects,  at  least,  that  had  already 
originated  in  England,  with  the  addition  of  a  few 
transplanted  from  the  Continent  of  Europe.  Of 
these  only  the  Congregationalists,  the  Presby- 
terians and  the  Episcopalians  have  any  special 
significance  in  relation  to  the  period  we  are  now 
contemplating.  And  popularly  the  first  two  were 
regarded  as  one.  The  religious  element  involved 
in  the  rebellion  was  invariably  spoken  of,  whether 
in  or  out  of  New^  England,  as  Presbyteeian.* 

*  8ee  Letter  of  Rev.  Jacob  Gel,  Episcopal  missionary  among  tlie 

Mohawks,  to  Sir  William  Joimson  : 

UiJT  Mein  Hauss 
DE  8te  Ac.  1762. 

To  THE  HuN.  Sir  Wm.  Johnson  : 

That  ij  reit  these  letter  en  trouble  yon  bij  these  ij  be  forced 
for  it:  the  reason  is  because  ij  heard  yesterday  in  the  castle  that  the 
Bostoniers  were  designed  to  erect  schools  in  everij  castle  by  choos- 
ing uijt  two  jnng  lioijs  for  to  be  send  in  nieu  engelland  to  be  in- 
structed there  and  tiiem  should  instruct  the  others  in  proper  learn- 
ing, now  learning  is  good  en  is  most  nece.ssarij  aniongs  the  haddens 
that  cannot  be  contradicted  but  ij  want  to  know  what  design  as  it  is 
to  introduce  their  own  Presbijteren  church  than  can  it  not  be  allowed 
en  as  it  prejudice  our  church  en  church  ceremonies  &.c. — Doc.  His- 
ioi\:/  of  New  York,  iv.  307. 

Mr.  Keith  writes  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Venerable  Society,  etc., 
that  "if  a  minister  be  not  sent  with  the  first  conveniency,  Presbyte- 
rian ministers  from  New  England  would  swarm  into  these  countries 
and  prevent  the  increase  of  the  Church." — Episcop.  Hisior.  Coll.,  1851, 
p.  xxiii. 


AT  THE  OPEy/NG  OF  THE  REVOLUTION.        7^ 

The  Baptists  already  existed  in  considerable 
numbers,  luiving  perhaps  three  hundred  or  more 
congregations.  But  they  were  without  organiza- 
tion of  any  kind,  without  an  educated  ministry, 
their  preachers  being  small  tradesmen  or  mechan- 
ics and  the  flocks  consisting  of  the  more  igno- 
rant and  enthusiastic  classes  in  the  middle  and 
southern  colonies.  It  is  only  toward  the  close 
of  this  period  and  in  connection  with  the  strug- 
gle for  religious  liberty  in  Virginia  that  they 
make  any  considerable  figure.* 

The  Methodists  in  England  and  America  still 
made  a  part  of  the  Anglican  Church,  and  through- 
out the  Bevolutionary  period  acted  in  sympathy 
with  it.  Mr.  Whitfield,  in  writing  from  America  to 
the  bishop  of  Oxford  and  others,  though  comment- 
ing in  very  severe  terms  on  the  character  of  the 
Episcopal  clergy  in  the  colonies,  yet  invariably 
describes  them  as  belonging  to  "  our  Church." 
During  the  war  for  indejiendence  they  are  in  no 
way  to  be  distinguished  from  other  Episcopalians. 
In  England,  John  AV^esley  at  first  employed  his 
pen  in  defence  of  the  measures  of  Parliament,  and 
]-eproduced  as  his  own,  without  acknowledgment, 
the  arguments  of  Samuel  Johnson's  Taxation 
no  Tyranny. ■];     He  afterward  changed  his  views, 

*  See  History  of  the  Baptist  /x^eres/s  in  the  JJnited  States,  by 
Rev.  Rufus  Babcock,  D.D.,  Ponglikeepsie,  N.  Y.,  in  Quart.  Pwyisler 
for  1841. 

f  Wei^ley's  Chlvi  Address  to  the  American  Colonies.     The  offensive 


74  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHURCH 

and  in  a  letter  to  Lord  North  remonstrated 
against  the  war,  declaring  that  "  in  spite  of  all 
his  long-rooted  prejudices  as  a  churchman  and  a 
loyalist,  he  cannot  avoid  thinking,  if  he  think  at 
all,  that  the  colonists  are  an  oppressed  people  ask- 
ing nothing  more  than  their  legal  rights."  He 
adds  that  it  is  idle  to  think  of  conquering 
America  :  "  Twenty  thousand  British  troops  could 
not  do  it." 

The  Roman  Catholics  were  still  few  in  number 
and  appear  during  this  period  in  no  ecclesiastical 
capacity.  In  1775  they  had  no  more  than  fifty 
congregations  in  the  colonies,  and  half  that  number 
of  clergy.  Even  in  Maryland  they  constituted  not 
more  than  one-twentieth  part  of  the  population. 

Quakerism  had  been  introduced  into  America 
early  in  the  century,  and  had  caught  with  great 
rapidity.  The  lofty  pretensions  and  bold  "  testi- 
fyings  "  of  the  early  preachers,  and  the  punish- 
ment they  brought  upon  themselves  by  their 
excesses,  recommended  their  views  to  the  loose 
religious  radicalism  which  hung  on  the  skirts  of 
the  New  England  churches.  They  throve  for  a 
while  on  "  persecution."  In  the  middle  colonies 
the  high  character  of  the  grantee  of  Pennsyl- 

sentiraents  of  tliis  address,  and  its  broad  and  subseqiiently  confessed 
plagiarisms,  exposed  the  antlior  to  very  severe  criticism.  See  Dr. 
Toplady's  Old  Fo.t  tarred  and  feathered,  occasioned  by  what  f.s  called 
Mr.  John  Wesley's  Calm  Address  to  our  American  colonies. — Toplady'a 
Works,  V.  441. 


AT  THE  OPENING  OF  THE  REVOLUTION.        75 

Yuiiia,  not  yet  defaced  by  the  sharp  ])ens  of  later 
critics,  and  the  pacific  character  and  benevolent 
aims  of  his  administration,  attracted  numerous 
adherents.  Quakers  swarmed  on  both  sides  the 
Delaware — disputatious,  high-flying,  theological 
Quakers,  non-combatant  as  respects  carnal  weap- 
ons, but  ever  ready  for  dialectical  brawl  and 
battle.  They  were  already  broken  up  by  schisms. 
George  Keith,  a  busy,  stirring,  hot-headed  bro- 
ther, who  subsequently  conformed  to  the  Angli- 
can Church  and  became  an  ultra-zealous  Epis- 
copal missionary  in  the  colonies,  had  a  consider- 
able following  called  Keithiau  or  Christian 
Quakers.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Foxonian  or 
Deistical  Quakers,  who  are  described  by  JMessrs. 
Keith  and  Talbot  as  "  no  better  than  heathens," 
were  passionately  enthusiastic  for  the  "  inner 
light"  and  against  the  authority  of  divine  rev- 
elation. The  two  factions  were  destroying  each 
other ;  and  it  is  worth  noticing  that  of  all  the 
sects  extant  in  the  colonies  in  the  Revolutionary 
period,  the  Quakers  are  the  only  one  that  has 
not  thriven  ;  all  the  others  have  multiplied  a 
thousand  fold.  They  alone  have  dwindled  till 
they  are  now  arrived  at  the  Yurge  of  extinction. 
As  concerns  the  Revolutionary  struggle,  a  few 
"  Deistical  Quakers,"  like  Benjamin  Franklin, 
acted  an  influential  part,  but  as  a  sect  they  had 
neither  part  nor  lot  in  the  matter. 


76  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHURCH 

"When  we  speak  of  the  Christian  Church  in 
connection  with  the  struggle  for  independence, 
we  have  occasion,  therefore,  to  notice  only  Pres- 
byterianism  and  Episcopacy;  always  remember- 
ing that  that  imperfect  form  of  Presbyterian  ism 
called  Congregationalism  existed  exclusively  in 
New  England. 

As  introductory  to  the  history  of  the  Presby- 
terian Church  during  the  Revolution  period,  it 
is  necessary  to  consider  briefly  its  condition  at 
the  opening  of  the  scene.  In  all  the  provinces 
south  of  and  including  New  York,  except  Penn- 
sylvania, the  Episcopal  Church  was  either  ex- 
pressly established  by  law  or  at  least  peculiarly 
favored  by  the  colonial  governments.  Episcopal 
churches  and  parsonages  were  built  by  the  aid 
of  the  royal  governors,  and  often  by  public  tax. 
The  clergy  were  salaried  by  assessments  on  the 
property  of  the  citizens  at  large.  Their  stipends 
were  fixed  by  law,  and  were  collected,  where  it 
was  necessary  (and  practicable),  by  execution  and 
distress. 

In  New  York  the  profligate  Lord  Corn  bury — 
bankrupt  in  character  and  fortune — was  a  zealous 
friend  of  "  the  present  happy  establishment  in 
Church  and  State."  *  In  New  Jersey,  by  one  of 
those  retributions  which  often  attend  unhallowed 

*  See  letter  of  Rev.  Dr.  Aiiciimuty  to  Sir  William  Johnson   of 
date  20th  May,  1770. 


AT  THE  OPENING  OF  THE  REVOLUTION.        77 

love,  the  natural  son  of  Benjamin  Franklin,  the 
last  royal  governor  of  the  province,  was  a  bitter 
enemy  of  both  the  political  and  religious  liberty 
for  which  his  father  contended.  Maryland,  orig- 
inally a  Roman  Catholic  proprietary  grant,  was 
organized  ecclesiastically  as  a  branch  of  the 
Church  of  England,  containing  in  1775  about 
20  parishes.  In  Virginia,  where  the  union  of 
Church  and  State  was  closest,  the  clergy  were 
"presented"  to  their  "livings"  by  the  governor, 
and  the  value  of  the  benefice  was  calculated,  as 
also  in  Maryland,  in  the  great  staple  of  the  prov- 
ince. The  salary  was  settled  by  act  of  legisla- 
ture in  1721  at  16,000  pounds  of  tobacco,  or  a 
cash  equivalent  of  eighteen  shillings  the  hundred 
pounds.*  To  every  parsonage  was  attached  a 
glebe  of  not  less  than  200  acres.  In  fact,  the 
"  ancient  dominion "  exhibited  nearly  as  per- 
fect an  example  of  a  Church-and-State  estab- 
lishment as  the  mother-country  itself.  Virginia 
was  simply  a  cis-Atlantic  magnified  Hampshire 
or  Bucks,  where  the  clergy  and  the  squire- 
archy held  carnival  and  royal  governors  made 
it  their  ambition  to  be  nursing-fathers  to  "  the 
Church," 

*  In  Maryland  tlie  salary  was,  in  some  cases,  miicli  larger, 
amounting  to  thirty,  and  even  forty,  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco. 
The  cash  value  of  the  salaries  was  from  £50  to  £80  colonial  cur- 
rency, which  was  depreciated  in  the  various  colonies  from  25  to  50 
per  cent,  below  slei'ling  value. 
7* 


78  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHURCH 

The  parish  ministers  came  from  England,  and 
were  mostly  such  as  England  could  well  afford  to 
spare.  The  "Venerable  Society  for  the  Propaga- 
tion of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts,"  chartered 
in  1701,  exerted  itself  to  send  out  chaplains  and 
missionaries,  but  the  name  of  the  society  repre- 
sented a  sentiment  which  was  then  only  feebly 
nascent  in  England.  The  funds  were  small  and 
the  candidates  few.  Patlier  than  send  none,  the 
society  sent  such  as  they  could  get ;  and  what 
these  were  the  complaints  and  remonstrances 
from  the  colonies  too  clearly  indicate.  "  Many 
of  them,"  observes  Dr.  Hawks,  "  were  every  way 
unfitted  for  their  stations.  The  precariousness 
of  the  tenure  by  which  they  held  their  livings 
contributed  not  a  little  to  beget  in  them  an  in- 
difference to  their  duties,  and  the  irregularities 
and  crimes  of  an  unworthy  clergyman  could  not 
be  visited  effectually  with  the  severities  of  eccle- 
siastical censure.  Far  removed  from  his  diocesan, 
and  standing  in  little  awe  of  the  authorities  of 
the  Episcopal  commissary,  he  sometimes  offended 
religion  and  morals  with  impunity,  and  still  re- 
mained in  the  Church,  a  reproach  to  her  min- 
i.try."=^= 

*  Contributions  to  Ecclesiastical  History,  etc.,  pp.  88,  89. 

Mr.  Whitfield  wrote  to  the  "Venerable  Society,  etc.,"  under  date 
of  November  30,  1740:  "The  state  of  the  Cliurch  of  England  in 
America  is  at  a  very  low  ebb,  and  will  in  all  probability  be  much 
worse — nay,  at  last  dwindled  intc  nothing — unless  care  be  taken  to 


AT  THE  OPENING  OF  THE  REVOLUTION.        79 

"  In  numerous  instances,"  observes  Rev.  Dr. 
Babcock,  ''  we  bave  beard  from  tbe  lips  of  old 
men  lamentable  descriptions  of  tbe  immoral  and 
profligate  lives  of  tbeir  former  rectors.  Two  or 
tbree  days  in  eacb  week  during  tbe  season  tbe  par- 
son spent  in  fox-bunting  witb  bis  irreligious  par- 
ishioners, and  tbe  bunt  closed  witb  baccbanalian 
orgies  in  wbicli  be  usually  bore  tbe  leading  part. 
We  bave  seen  a  manuscript  volume  of  poetry 
composed  by  one  of  tbese  Virginia  sbepberds  tbat 
for  amatory  levity  would  bave  raised  a  blusb  on 
tbe  cbeeks  of  Horace.'-^  Many  came  over,  sucb  as 
wore  black  coats  and  could  babble  in  a  pulpit, 
roar  in  a  tavern,  exact  from  tbeir  parishioners, 
and  by  tbeir  dissolute  lives  destroy  ratber  tbau 

send  over  missionaries  that  are  better  qualified  for  the  pastoral 
office.  It  is  too  evident  that  most  of  them  are  corrupt  in  their 
principles  and  immoral  in  their  practices,  and  many  of  them  such 
as  could  not  stand  their  trials  amongst  the  Dissenters  or  were  dis- 
carded by  them  for  their  profaneness  and  irregularities.  Our  Church 
seems  to  be  their  last  refuge,"  etc. — Episcopal  Historical  Colleclio7i, 
1851,  p.  129. 

Colonel  Heathcote  takes  a  more  cheerful  view  of  the  society's  in- 
fluence, so  far,  at  least,  as  Connecticut  was  concerned.  "  I  really  be- 
lieve," he  observes,  "  that  more  than  half  the  people  in  that  govern- 
ment think  our  Church  to  be  little  better  than  the  Papist.  But — I 
bless  God  for  it — the  society  have  robbed  them  of  their  best  argument, 
which  was  the  ill  lives  of  our  clergy  that  came  into  these  parts,  and 
the  truth  is  I  have  not  seen  many  good  men  but  of  the  society's 
sending." — Doc.  History  of  New  York,  iv.  122. 

But  Mr.  Whitfield  calls  even  the  society's  missionaries  "  ungodly 
despicable  ministers." 

*  See  American  Quarterly  Register,  1841, 


80  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHURCH 

feed  their  flocks."  *  A  great  writer,  who  in  state- 
ments of  fact  is  as  true  to  history  as  in  his  por- 
traitures of  character  he  is  true  to  nature,  ob- 
serves: "Unlike  some  of  the  neighboring  prov- 
inces, Virginia  was  a  Church  of  England  colony. 
The  clergymen  were  paid  by  the  State  and  had 
glebes  allotted  to  them;  and  there  being  no  Church 
of  England  bishop  yet  in  America,  the  colonists 
were  obliged  to  import  their  divines  from  the 
mother-country.  Such  as  came  were  not  natu- 
rally of  the  very  best  or  most  eloquent  kind  of 
pastors.  Noblemen's  hangers-on,  insolvent  par- 
sons who  had  quarreled  with  justice  or  the  bailiff, 
brought  their  stained  cassocks  into  the  colony  in 
the  hopes  of  finding  a  living." f  The  condition 
of  things  was  equally  bad  in  Maryland,  where 
Mr.  Bancroft  says,  "  Ruffians,  fugitives  from  jus- 
tice, men  stained  by  intemperance  and  lust,  dis- 
honored the  surplices  they  wore."  J 

Presbyterians,  even  in  those  colonies  or  parts 
of  colonies  where  they  composed  the  great  ma- 
jority, were  "dissenters,"  enjoying  a  precarious 
toleration.  They  could  preach  only  by  special 
license  and  in  licensed  raeetiuir-houses.  Nothino- 
was  more  common  than  for  them  to  be  called  be- 
fore justices  or  governors  and  threatened  or  fined 

*  Dr.  Hawks'  Ecclesiastical  History  of  Virginia,  p.  65,  quoted  from 
a  contemporaneous  writer. 

f  The  Virginians,  by  W.  M.  Thackeray,  chapter  v. 
X  Banciofi's  History,  iv.  129. 


AT  THE  OPENING  OF  THE  REVOLUTION.        81 

for  illegally  preacliing  tlie  gospel.  Such  was  the 
treatment  that  Francis  McKemie,  George  Hamp- 
ton and  John  McNish  met  with  in  the  early  part 
of  the  century;  and  down  to  the  Kevolution  the 
experiences  of  the  Preshyterian  clergy  were  often 
of  the  same  sort.  In  1G18  a  law  was  passed  in 
Virginia  which  enacted  that  every  person  ''should 
go  to  church  on  Sundays  and  holidays,  or  lye  neck 
and  heels  that  night  and  be  a  slave  to  the  colony 
the  following  day."  For  the  second  offence  he 
was  to  be  a  slave  a  week  and  the  third  a  year.  In 
1642  a  law  was  passed  that  "  no  minister  shall  be 
permitted  to  officiate  in  the  country  but  such  as 
shall  produce  to  the  governor  a  testimonial  that 
he  hath  received  ordination  from  some  bishop  in 
England,  and  shall  then  subscribe  to  be  conform-" 
able  to  the  orders  and  constitutions  of  the  Church 
of  England  ;  and  if  any  other  person  pretending 
himself  to  be  a  minister  shall,  contrary  to  this  act, 
presume  to  teach  or  preach  publicly  or  privately, 
the  governor  and  council  are  hereby  desired  and 
empowered  to  suspend  and  silence  the  person  so 
offending,  and  ujoon  his  obstinate  persistence  to 
compel  him  to  depart  the  country  with  the  first 
convenience.  Several  of  these  laws  were  after- 
ward repealed  or  the  penalties  mitigated,  but  they 
remained  severe  until  the  Revolution."  * 

It   was  quite  in  the  natural  order  of  things, 

*Dr.  Miller's  Life  of  Dr.  John  Bochjers,  p.  28. 


82  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHURCH 

therefore,  that  when  the  struggle  broke  out  be- 
tween Great  Britain  and  her  colonies  the  Episco- 
pal and  the  Presbyterian  clergy  should  take  dif- 
ferent sides.  The  former  were  entirely  satisfied 
with  the  existing  order  and  had  nothing  to  gain  by 
a  change.  They  were,  of  course,  the  friends  of  a 
government  which  favored  them,  which  gave  them 
peculiar  privileges,  among  others  the  privilege  of 
looking  down  on  and  harassing  all  other  CJiris- 
tians  as  dissenters.  Their  own  instincts  all  tended 
the  same  way.  They  were  English  born  or  had 
been  educated  and  ordained  in  England.  They 
owed  ecclesiastical  allegiance  to  the  English  epis- 
copate, or  at  near  hand  to  the  resident  commissary 
of  the  bishop  of  Eondon.  The  spiritual  peers 
and  the  clergy  "at  home  "  all  lent. a  zealous  sup- 
port to  the  measures  of  the  Parliament  for  coer- 
cino-  the  colonies.  It  was  too  much  to  expect  that 
the  Episcopal  clergy  here  should  separate  them- 
selves from  the  body  to  which  they  belonged. 
They  simply  stuck  to  the  principles  of  loyalty 
and  allegiance  that  were  natural  to  them  in  the 
circumstances. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Inglis,  rector  of  Trinity  church, 
New  York,  writing  to  the  secretary  of  the  "  Ven- 
erable Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  " 
in  1776,  says,  ''  I  have  the  pleasure  to  assure  you 
that  all  tlie  society's  missionaries,  without  except- 
ing one  in  New  Jersev,  New  York,  Connecticut, 


AT  THE  OPENTNG  OF  THE  REVOLUTION.        83 

and  so  far  as  I  can  learn  in  all  the  New  England 
colonies,  have  proved  themselves  loyal  and  fiiithful 
snbjects  in  these  trying  times,  and  have  to  the 
utmost  of  their  power  opposed  the  spirit  of  disaf- 
fection. I  must  add  that  all  the  other  clergy  of 
our  Church  in  the  above-named  colonies  have  ob- 
served the  same  line  of  conduct ;  and  although 
their  joint  endeavors  could  not  wholly  prevent 
the  rebellion,  yet  they  checked  it  considerably 
for  some  time,  and  prevented  many  thousands 
from  plunging  into  it." 

He  adds  that  very  few  of  the  laiti/  who  had 
either  property  or  character  joined  in  the  re- 
bellion. 

This  latter  assertion  had  many  and  signal 
exceptions,  or  rather  outside  of  New  York  and 
Connecticut  had  very  little  basis  of  fact.  But 
the  Episcopal  clergy,  at  least  in  the  breaking  out 
of  the  devolution,  found  themselves  in  broad  and 
bitter  antagonism  with  the  spirit  and  views  of 
the  people.  They  could  not  reconcile  themselves 
to  read  the  service  leaving  out  the  prayers  for  the 
king,  nor  could  they  read  tlieni  without  subject- 
ino-  themselves  to  interruptions,  threats  and  a 
possible  experience  of  tar  and  feathers.  They 
took  the  safe  course  of  demitting  their  functions, 
and  shook  off  the  dust  from  their  feet  as  a  testi- 
mony against  theiv  rebellious  parishioners. 

The   Episcopal    Churcli,  therefore,  which  one 


84  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHURCH 

hundred  years  ago  numbered  about  two  hundred 
and  fifty  clergy  of  all  sorts  (excej^t  bishops), 
suddenly  and  universally  disappeared.  The  tem- 
ples were  left,  but  the  priests  had  departed. 
After  the  melancholy  extinguishment  of  Mr. 
Duche,  not  one  of  them,  with  the  exception  of 
Dr.  White,  officiated  as  chaplain  in  Congress,  and 
only  Dr.  Griffith  and  two  or  three  more  as  chap- 
lains in  the  army — a  neglect  with  which  it  has 
been  impossible  to  charge  the  Episcopal  clergy  in. 
any  period  since.  A  few  resolute  parsons,  like 
Mr.  Beach  in  Connecticut  and  Dr.  Inglis  in  New 
York,  continued  a  while  longer  to  pray  for  the 
king.  Perhaps  Dr.  Inglis  himself  read  the  last 
collect  for  King  George  that  was  ever  offered 
after  the  colonies  developed  into  States.  That 
distinguished  and  justly  honored  minister  and 
(later)  prelate,  William  White,  states  that  he 
read  the  prayer  for  the  king  the  last  time  on  the 
Sunday  preceding  the  4th  of  July,  1776. 

So  it  resulted  that  the  Established  Church  and 
the  colonial  officials  were  on  one  side,  and  the 
American  People  on  the  other ;  just  as,  a  few 
years  later,  it  came  to  pass  in  France  that  the 
nation  found  itself  struggling  for  freedom  against 
the  noblesse  and  the  clergy. 

Whatever  may  have  been  true  in  the  history 
of  earlier  struggles  between  prerogative  and 
liberty  in    England,  it   is   quite   unnecessary  to 


AT  THE  orENING  OF  THE  REVOLUTION.        85 

claim  that  there  is  any  natural  relationship  be- 
tween Episcopacy  and  monarchy,  or  any  vital 
repugnance  between  it  and  popular  institutions. 
It  is  even  maintained  by  distinguished  writers 
of  that  persuasion  that  there  is  a  singularly  close 
analogy  between  the  constitution  of  their  Church 
and  the  political  Constitution  of  this  country. 
Certainly  no  one  will  pretend  that  since  the 
establishment  of  independence  there  have  been 
any  purer  patriots  or  stauncher  friends  of  lib- 
erty than  the  clergy  and  laity  of  the  Episcopal 
Church.  It  is  with  no  disposition,  therefore,  to 
cast  reproach  upon  that  large  and  intelligent  Chris- 
tian body,  but  simply  because  the  truth  of  his- 
tory requires  it,  that  the  fact  is  stated  of  the  nearly 
universal  as  well  as  very  bitter  Toryism  of  the 
Episcopal  clergy  during  the  Revolutionary  period. 
They  continually  wrote  to  England  maligning  the 
characters  and  ridiculing  the  efforts  of  the  patriot 
leaders.  They  encouraged  the  ministry  with 
assurances  of  certain  and  not  distant  success;* 
when  the  appeal  was  made  "  to  arms  and  to  the 
God  of  battles,"  they  withdrew  into  obscurity, 
fled  to  Nova  Scotia  or  returned  to  England. 

We  have  all,  perhaps,  seen  a  coarse  engraving 
purporting  to  represent  the  offering  of  "  the  first 

*  "  I  have  not  a  doubt "  (wrote  Dr.  Inglis  in  1776)  "  but  with  the 
blessing  of  Providence  His   Majesty's  arms  will  be  successful  and 
finally  crush  this  unnatural  rebellion." — Doc.  Hint,  of  New  York,  iii., 
1064. 
8 


86  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHURCH 

prayer  in  Congress."  The  rotnnd  and  florid 
officiating  chaplain  in  the  front,  clad  in  surplice, 
is  the  Rev.  Jacob  Duche,  described  by  one  of  his 
brethren  at  the  time  as  a  "  most  amiable  youth, 
of  captivating  eloquence." 

The  implication  of  the  picture  would  seem  to 
be  that  it  was  the  Episcopal  Charcli  in  the  per- 
son of  this  patriotic  and  captivating  "  church- 
man "  which  pronounced  her  benediction  on  the 
opening  struggle."^ 

The  Rev.  Jacob  Duche  was  by  birth  a  Phila- 
d'ilphian.  His  grandfather  Anthony,  a  French 
refugee,  had  acquired  property  here,  and  on  some 
occasion  lent  William  Penn  a  little  money. 
Thirty  j)ounds  of  this  remained  unpaid.  Penn 
offered  Mr.  Duche  in  satisfaction  the  entire 
square  lying  between  IMarket  and  Arch  and 
Third  and  Fourth  streets,  which  he  declined. 

Jacob  grew  up  a  promising  boy,  and  was  sent 
to  England  to  perfect  his  education.  He  studied 
.  at  the  University  of  Cambridge,  in  due  time  re- 
ceived episcopal  ordination,  returned  home,  and 
about  1770  became  rector  of  Christ's  church, 
Philadelphia. 

In  the  Congress  of  1776,  on  the  nomination 
of  Samuel  Adams,  he  was  elected  chaplain.     He 

*  On  the  celebration  in  Carpenters'  Hall,  Pliila(lel()liia,  of  tlie 
centenary  of  the  First  Congress,  the  portrait  of  Mr.  Duche  occupied 
a  conspicuous  position  over  the  head  of  the  chairman — with  how 
little  fitness  the  story  here  recited  shows. 


AT  THE  OPENING  OF  THE  REVOLUTION.        87 

had  previously  acted  in  that  capacity  for  the 
Continental  Congress  the  year  before ;  and  now, 
robed  in  full  canonicals,  he  came  forward  to  offer 
the  first  prayer  after  the  declaration  of  independ- 
ence. Tlie  singularly  appropriate  lesson  for  the 
morninsf  was  the  thirtv-fifth  Psalm :  "Flcad  tJiou 
my  cause,  0  Lord,  loith  them  that  strive  ivith  me, 
and  fight  thou  ivith  them  that  fight  against  me. 
Awake,  and  stand  up  to  judge  my  quarrel;  avenge 
thou  my  cause,  my  God  and  my  Lordr 

Having  finished  the  lesson,  the  chaplain  laid 
aside  the  prayer  book,  and  stretching  forth  his 
arms  broke  out  with  great  fervor  of  manner  in 
the  recitation  of  a  highly-aiDpropriate  precom- 
posed  prayer:  ^^ Look  doivn  in  mercy,  ive  beseech 
thee  (he  prayed),  on  these  our  American  States, 
who  have  fled  from  the  rod  of  the  opjyressor  and 
thro2cn  themselves  on  thy  gracious  protection. 
Give  them  wisdom  in  council  and  valor  in  the 
field ;  defeat  the  malicious  designs  of  our  cruel 
adversaries.  Oh,  let  the  voice  of  thine  unerring 
justice,  sounding  in  their  hearts,  co7istrain  them  to 
drop  the  weapons  of  war  from  their  unnerved 
hajids  in  the  day  of  battle J^ 

This  glow  of  patriotic  enthusiasm  lasted  for 
three  months.  Within  that  time  New  York  was 
occupied  and  Philadelphia  threatened  by  the 
British.  Mr.  Duche's  faith,  which  apparently 
had  in  it  little  of  the  substance  of  things  hoped 


88  CONDITION  OF  THE  CHURCH 

for,  began  to  waver.  He  resigned  his  chaplaincy 
and  withdrew  into  temporary  obscurity.  The 
following  year  the  disasters  of  the  patriot  arms 
increased.  Lord  Howe,  defeated  the  insurgents 
at  the  Brandywine  and  occupied  Philadelphia 
Then  Mr.  Duche  once  more  came  forth  upon  the 
scene.  Providence  was  evidently  frowning  on 
the  rebel  cause ;  and  far  be  it  from  Mr.  Duche 
that  he  should  be  found  lighting  against  God ! 
He  hastened  to  renounce  his  rebellion  and 
"  throw  himself  on  the  gracious  protection  "  of 
Lord  Howe.  All  this  might  easily  have  been 
forgotten;  but  with  a  bold  stroke  for  immortality, 
he  had  the  sublime  impudence  to  write  to  Gen- 
eral Washington  urging  him  to  pursue  a  similar 
course.  He  alleges  that  the  cause  of  the  revolted 
colonies  was  as  hopeless  as  it  was  godless,  repre- 
sents the  army,  both  officers  and  men,  as  a  vul- 
gar and  undisciplined  rabble,  and  recommends 
Washington  to  disperse  Congress  at  the  point  of 
the  bayonet.  Having  thus  given  the  highest 
possible  evidence  of  recovered  loyalty,  Mr. 
Duche  sailed  for  England.  Washington  laid 
the  insulting  letter  before  Congress  and  directed 
the  bearer  to  inform  Mr.  Duche  that  if  he  had 
had  any  idea  of  its  nature  he  should  have  re- 
turned it  unopened 

I  feel  no  hesitation  in  making  this  commentary 
on  the  pictorial  fraud  referred  to,  since  this  frivol- 


AT  THE  OFENIXG  OF  THE  REVOLUTION. 


89 


ous  renegade  will  be  dismissed  with  equal  con- 
tempt by  the  Chnrch  he  dishonored  as  by  Cliris- 
tians  of  every  other  denomination. 


TI. 

THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH  AND  THE  WAR 
OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

The  course  of  the  Presbyterian  clergy,  both 
during  the  war  and  throughout  the  whole  series 
of  events  leading  to  it,  is  so  broadly  written  on 
the  pages  of  history  that  did  it  not  seem  to  make 
a   necessary  part  of  a   story  like  this  I  should 
content  myself  with  barely  alluding  to  it.     It  was 
exactly  seventy  years  before,  that  their  first  pres- 
bytery had  been  organized  in  the  city  of  Phila- 
delphia, with  only  seven  ministers.     During  this 
period  of   "Babylonian   captivity,"    discouraged 
as  they  had  continually  been  by  the  royal  gov- 
ernors, fined  and  shut  up  in  jail  under  pretext  of 
their  preaching  without  a  license,  their  churches 
wrested    from  them,  their  congregations  doubly 
taxed  to  sustain  their  own  clergy  and  those  of 
the  Episcopal  Church  also,— they  had  yet  multi- 
plied to  about  one  hundred  ministers  and  twice 
that  number  of  conoregations.     At  the  breaking 


90  THE  PRESB  YTER I  A  N  CH  UR  CH 

out  of  the  Revolutionary  war  they  were  distrib- 
uted into  eleven  presbyteries.  The  presbyteries 
of  New  York,  Dutchess  and  Suffolk,  with  about 
thirty  ministers,  were  mostly  in  New  York. 
New  Brunswick,  with  nine  ministers,  in  New 
Jersey.  The  First  and  Second  Philadelphia  and 
Lewes,  with  twenty  members,  in  Pennsylvania. 
New  Castle,  with  eight  ministers,  and  Donegal, 
with  thirteen,  were  in  Delaware  and  Maryland, 
Hanover  in  Virginia,  with  perhaps  twelve  minis- 
ters, and  Orange,  with  fifteen,  in  North  Carolina. 
With  absolute  unanimity  these  pastors  and  their 
people  committed  themselves  to  the  doubtful  and 
desperate  struggle  for  independence.  Heteroge- 
neous as  they  were  in  origin — part  New  England 
Congregationalists,  j^art  Dutchmen  of  New  Am- 
sterdam, part  Scotch-Irisli,  part  Huguenots,  part 
Highlanders,  exiles  of  "  the  '45  " — the  common 
element  of  a  Presbyterian  polity  and  a  Calvinis- 
tic  theology  fused  them  into  one  patriotic  mass, 
glowing  with  an  intense  passion  for  civil  and 
religious  liberty.  They  openly  took  the  atti- 
tude, and  consented  to  the  name  and  the  re- 
sponsibility, of  rebels  against  the  British  govern- 
ment. 

It  was  no  doubt  a  zeal  for  religious,  quite  as 
much  as  for  political  liberty,  that  impelled  them 
into  this  jwsition — a  sentiment  that  did  not  oper- 
ate with  equal  force  in  New  England,  where  the 


AND  THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE.  91 

Congrogatioiuilists,  instead  of  suffering  as  dissent- 
ers, were  themselves  an  established  Church,  able 
and  not  wholly  indisposed  to  lay  a  heavy  hand 
on  other  denominations. 

Dr.  Inglis  says,  "Although  civil  liberty  was  the 
ostensible  object,  the  bait  that  was  flung  out  to  catch 
the  populace  at  large  and  engage  them  in  the  re- 
bellion, yet  it  is  now  past  all  doubt  that  an  abo- 
lition of  the  Church  of  England  was  one  of  the 
principal  ends  aimed  at,  and  hence  the  unanimity 
of  the  dissenters  in  this  business.  I  have  it  from 
good  authority  that  the  Presbyterian  ministers,  at 
a  synod  where  most  of  them  in  the  middle  colo- 
nies were  collected,  passed  a  resolve  to  support  the 
Continental  Congress  in  all  their  measures.  This, 
and  this  only,  can  account  for  the  uniformity  of 
their  conduct,  for  I  do  not  hioiv  one  of  them,  nor 
have  I  been  able,  after  strict  inquiry,  to  hear  of 
any,  who  did  not  by  preaching  and  every  effort 
in  their  power  promote  all  the  measures  of  the 
Congress,  however-  extravagant."  * 

It  was  not,  however,  by  any  passionate  impulse, 
or  by  any  fraudulent  representation  of  their  leaders, 
that  they  were  brought  into  an  attitude  so  much 
at  variance  with  all  their  j^rinciples  as  Christians 
and  all  their  instincts  as  subjects.  The  spirit  of 
the  Presbyterian  Church,  like  that  of  the  Epis- 

*  Sidle  of  the  Avglo-American  Church  in  1776,  by  Rev.  Charles  In- 
glis, Doc.  Hist,  of  New  York;  iv.  1048. 


92  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

copal,  though  perhaps  in  a  somewhat  less  intense 
degree,  is  conservative.  Comprehending  in  its 
clergy  a  body  of  educated  as  well  as  profoundly 
religious  men,  and  in  its  membership  mostly  the 
upper  and  middle  classes,  containing  few  poor  and 
none  ignorant,  with  a  large  stake,  therefore,  in 
the  stability  of  society, — the  Presbyterian  Church 
is  necessarily  pledged  to  order,  loyalty  and  the 
maintenance  of  existing  institutions.  Presbyte- 
rianism  has  always  been  in  quick  sympathy  with 
constitutional  government,  but  is  by  no  necessity 
hostile  to  monarchy.  If  at  one  time,  while  fight- 
ing the  battle  of  English  liberties,  it  was  found 
in  deadly  and  fiital  collision  with  the  sovereign, 
it  was  also  found,  in  its  recoil  from  anarchy, 
forward  in  rebuilding  the  throne.  It  was  the 
English  Presbyterians  who  joined  with  the  army 
to  bring  about  the  Restoration;  and  they  are  not 
otherwise  to  be  blamed  for  the  consequences  than 
as  men  may  be  blamed  who  fly  from  petty  tyrants 
to  the  throne,  and  in  their  zeal  for  order  are  too 
little  on  their  guard  against  treachery.  They 
bound  the  king,  so  far  as  oaths  could  bind  so 
"universal  a  villain,"  to  the  cause  of  religion  and 
righteousness.  They  were,  of  course,  betrayed  ; 
but  it  has  taken  several  generations  since  to  bring 
the  world  to  a  complete  realization  of  the  bottom- 
less folly  and  faithlessness  of  the  house  of  Stuart. 
The  Presbyterians  of  the  American  colonies 


AND  THE  WAB  OF  INDEPENDENCE.  93 

were  imbued  with  a  spirit  of  intense  loyalty  to 
the  Britisli  government.  In  no  part  of  the  em- 
pire was  tliere  a  more  enthusiastic  reverence  for 
the  throne.  The  provincials  gloried  in  the  title 
and  claimed  the  rights  of  British  subjects.  They 
detested  the  brutal  radicalism  of  John  Wilkes 
and  the  English  mob.  In  the  admirable  pastoial 
letter  addressed  to  the  churches  by  the  synod  of 
New  York  and  Philadelphia  on  the  breaking  out 
of  hostilities  they  say,  "  In  carrying  on  this  im- 
portant struggle  let  every  opportunity  be  taken 
tc  express  your  attachment  and  respect  to  our 
sovei'eign  king  George  and  to  the  revolution 
principlos  by  which  his  august  family  was  seated 
on  the  British  throne.  We  recommend,  indeed, 
not  only  allegiance  to  him  from  duty  and  prin- 
ciple, as  the  first  magistrate  of  the  empire,  but  es- 
teem and  reverence  for  the  person  of  the  prince 
who  has  merited  well  of  his  subjects  on  many 
accounts,  and  who  has  probably  been  misled  into 
the  late  and  the  present  measures  by  those  about 
him.  It  gives  us  the  greatest  pleasure  to  say, 
from  our  own  certain  knowledge  of  all  belonging 
to  our  communion,  that  the  present  opposition  to 
the  measures  of  the  ministry  does  not  in  the 
least  arise  from  disaffection  to  the  king  or  a  de- 
sire of  separation  from  the  parent  state.  We  are 
happy  in  being  able  with  truth  to  affirm,  that  no 
part  of  America  would  either  have  approved  or 


94'  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

permitted  such  insults  as  have  been  offered  to 
the  sovereign  in  Great  Britain.  We  expect  you, 
therefore,  to  continue  in  the  same  disposition  and 
not  to  suffer  oppression  or  injury  itself  to  pro- 
voke you  into  anything  which  may  seem  to 
betray  contrary  sentiments.  Let  it  ever  appear 
that  you  only  desire  the  preservation  and  security 
of  those  rights  which  belong  to  you  as  freemen 
a7ia  BiiiTONS,  and  that  reconciliation  upon  these 
terms  is  your  most  ardent  desire."* 

This  was  in  May,  1775,  a  month  after  the 
slaughter  at  Lexington  and  the  disastrous  retreat 
of  the  British  troops  upon  Boston. 

This  sentiment  of  affection  for  the  j^erson  of 
the  sovereign  was  with  great  difficulty  rooted  out 
from  the  hearts  of  the  colonists.  They  wept 
with  at  least  conventional  tears  the  death  of 
George  II.  and  hailed  with  enthusiastic  hopes 
the  accession  of  his  grandson  to  the  throne. 

That  brilliant  and  too  brief  light  of  the 
j^.merican  pulpit — the  Doctor  Seraphiciis  of  the 
colonial  ministry — Samuel  Davies,  in  his  sermon 
on  the  death  of  that  profligate  Hanoverian  prince, 
George  II.,  broke  out  into  such  strains  as  these : 

"  George  is  no  more !  George  the  mighty,  the 
just,  the  gentle,  the  wise,  George  the  father  of 
Britain  and  her  colonies,  the  guardian  of  laws 
and  liberty,  the  protector  of  the  oppressed,  the 

*  See  Minutes  of  the  Synod,  p.  468. 


AND  THE  WAR  OF  IXDEPENDENCE.  95 

arbiter  of  Europe,  the  terror  of  tyrants  and  of 
France !  George,  the  friend  of  man,  the  bene- 
factor of  millions,  is  no  more.  Britain  expresses 
her  sorrow  in  national  groans.  Europe  re-echoes 
to  the  melancholy  sound.  This  remote  American 
continent  shares  in  the  loyal  sympathy.  The 
wide  intermediate  Atlantic  rolls  the  tide  of  grief 
to  these  distant  shores."  And  after  pages  more 
in  this  maestoso  vein  the  strain  changes  to  a  joy- 
ful allegro  as  Mr.  Davies  turns  to  hail  the  newly- 
risen  star  of  British  monarchy.  "But  I  retract 
the  melancholy  thought  (he  says).  George  still 
lives,  he  still  adorns  his  throne,  he  still  blesses 
the  world  in  the  person  of  his  royal  descendant 
and  successor ;  and  if  the  early  appearance  of 
genius,  humanity,  condescension,  the  spirit  of 
liberty  and  love  of  his  people,  if  British  birth, 
education  and  connections,  if  the  wishes  and 
prayers  of  every  lover  of  his  country,  have  any 
efficacy,  George  the  Third  will  reign  like  George 
the  Second.  Hail,  desponding  religion !  lift  up 
thy  drooping  head  and  triumph.  Virtue,  thou 
heaven-born  exile,  return  to  court !  Young 
George  invites  thee.  George  declares  himself 
thy  early  friend  and  patron.  Vice,  thou  tri- 
umphant monster,  with  all  thy  infernal  train, 
retire,  abscond  and  fly  to  thy  native  hell ! 
Young  George  forbids  thee  to  appear  at  court,  in 
the  army,  the  navy  or  any  of  thy  usual  haunts. 


96  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

What  happy  days  are  before  us  when  Eeligion- 
and  Geoege  shall  reign  !"  And  then,  soaring  on 
the  wings  of  Virgil's  prophetic  muse  and  contem- 
plating the  coming  Satitrnia  reffna,  he  exclaimed, 
*' Such  a  presage  renders  the  blessings  we  shall 
receive  under  the  reign  of  George  the  Third  al- 
most as  sure  as  those  we  have  received  under 
that  of  George  the  .Second."  This  (may  I  rev- 
erently add)  he  spoke  not  of  himself,  but  being 
a  prophet  he  foresaw  obscurely  the  benefits  which 
the  patriotic  and  conscientious  stubbornness  of 
the  sovereign  would  be  the  means  of  conferring 
on  the  colonists;  for  surely,  if  the  prophetic 
charisma  has  ever  lighted  on  any  of  the  sons  of 
men  since  the  days  of  the  apostles,  it  was  upon 
him  who,  twenty  years  before  Braddock's  only 
surviving  aid  was  called  to  the  command  of  the 
American  armies,  spoke  of  "that  heroic  youth, 
Colonel  Washington,  whom  Providence  seems 
to  have  preserved  in  so  signal  a  manner  for  some 
important  service  to  his  country."  * 

Let  us  think  kindly  of  that  narrow-minded, 
obstinate,  devout,  exemplary  man  and  king  whom 
our  fathers  were  reluctantly  forced  to  defy  and 
disown.  His  reign  signalized  the  era  of  decency 
in  the  British  court  which  has  broadened  into  the 

*  Religion  and  Patriotism  the  Comfituents  of  a  cjood  Soldier,  a 
sermon  preached  to  Captain  Overton's  independent  company  of  vol- 
unteers, raised  in  Hanover  county,  Virginia,  August  17,  1755. 


AND  THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE.  97 

liigli-toned  morality  of  the  present  reign.  "  Tlie 
im]:)rovenient  in  i)nblic  morals  at  the  close  of  the 
eighteenth  century,"  observes  Lord  Campbell, 
"may  mainly  be  ascribed  to  George  the  Third 
and  his  queen,  who  not  only  by  their  bright 
example  but  by  their  well-directed  efforts  greatly 
discouraged  the  profligacy  which  was  introduced 
at  the  Kestoration,  and  which  continued  with 
little  abatement  till  their  time." ''' 

*'  O  brothers  speaking  the  same  dear  mother- 
tongue,"  said  that  beautiful  genius  who  recited 
here  hi  our  own  ears  with  such  unshrinking 
fidelity  the  story  of  the  "  Four  Georges,"  "  O 
comrades,  enemies  no  more,  let  us  clasp  a  mourn- 
ful hand  as  we  stand  by  this  royal  corpse  and 
call  a  truce  to  battle.  Low  he  lies  to  whom  the 
proudest  used  once  to  kneel,  and  who  was  cast 
lower  than  the  poorest.  Dead — whom  millions 
prayed  for  in  vain !  Driven  off  his  throne,  buf- 
feted by  rude  hands,  his  children  in  revolt,  the 
darling  of  his  age,  his  Cordelia,  killed  untimely 
before  him.  Hush,  strife  and  quarrel,  over  the 
solemn  grave !  Sound,  trumpets,  a  mournful 
march  !  Fall,  dark  curtain,  upon  his  pageant, 
his  pride,  his  grief,  his  awful  tragedy  !" 

Even  down  to  the  declaration  of  independence, 
through  all  the  agitations,  alarms  and  bloodshed- 

*  Campbell's  Lives  of  the   Lord   Chancellors,  vii.  182,  American 
edition. 
9 


98  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

ding  of  the  opening  scenes  of  the  great  drama, 
and  while  engaged  in  deadly  oj>position  to  the 
British  Parliament,  the  Presbyterian  clergy  con- 
tinued to  pray  for  the  king  and  royal  family. 
The  explanation  of  this  seeming  anomaly  is 
found  in  the  very  diverse  views  of  constitutional 
allegiance  entertained  by  the  Americans  toward 
the  two  parts  of  the  British  government.  Not 
merely  did  they  labor  under  the  somewhat  mis- 
taken impression  that  George  the  Third  was  kind- 
ly disposed  toward  them,  and  was  dragged  reluc- 
tantly by  popular  enthusiasm  into  sanctioning  the 
arbitrary  measures  against  their  liberties,  but  they 
also  made  a  wide  difference  between  the  claims 
which  the  king  and  the  Parliament  had  on  their 
allegiance.  The  colonists  had  always  insisted  on 
the  right  of  regulating  their  own  affairs  for  them- 
selves, of  voting  their  own  taxes,  salarying  their 
own  judges,  raising  and  officering  their  own  troops. 
The  colonial  legislatures  were  in  their  view  co-or- 
dinate Parliaments.  They  uniformly  denied  that 
the  imperial  Parliament  had  any  right  to  make 
laws  for  them  while  they  were  unrepresented  in 
it.  As  against  the  British  people,  therefore,  they 
had  no  declaration  of  independence  to  make.  It 
was  as  absurd,  they  held,  for  the  burgesses  and 
knights  of  the  English  shires  to  vote  taxes  on  the 
colonists  as  it  would  be  for  the  colonists  to  reverse 
the  process.      The  people  of  England  were  not 


AND  THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE.  99 

their  masters.  They  were  self-governing  by  their 
own  charters  under  the  British  constitution.  The 
single  point  of  union  between  them  and  the  Eng- 
lish people  was  allegiance  in  common  to  the  same 
sovereign. 

The  great  and  difficult  step  to  be  taken,  there- 
fore, by  the  colonists,  in  1776,  was  to  cast  off  their 
allegiance  to  the  throne.  It  was  against  the  king 
that  the  impeachments  of  the  Declaration  were 
addressed,  and  not  against  the  Parliament.  It  was 
the  long  series  of  acts,  so  impressively  recited  in 
the  preamble  of  that  great  instrument  as  imply- 
ing every  attribute  that  can  define  a  tyrant,  which 
forced  the  long-hesitating  and  reluctant  provin- 
cials at  length  to  sever  the  last  tie  which  bound 
them  to  the  British  government. 

It  was  with  no  insincerity,  therefore,  that  the 
Presbyterian  clergy,  for  more  than  a  year  after 
we  were  actually  at  war  with  Great  Britain,  con- 
tinued to  pray  for  "  our  sovereign  and  rightful 
lord.  King  George."  They  owned  him  as  their 
legitimate  prince,  though  they  denied  that  the 
Parliament  was  their  master.  No  doubt,  also,  the 
simple,  domestic  and  religious  character  of  the 
king  and  the  various  stories  told  of  his  kindly, 
frugal  life  bad  greatly  endeared  him  to  the  colo- 
nists, with  whom  such  virtues  were  prized  at  their 
full  value.  The  last  sound  of  prayer  for  George 
the  Third  died  out  of  Presbyterian  pulpits  in  the 


100  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

month  of  June,  1776,  and  in  its  stead  came  a  new 
collect,  sine  monitore,  quia  de  pectore,  for  "the 
Congress  of  these  United  States  and  for  His  Ex- 
cellency the  commander-in-chief  of  the  Ameri- 
can armies." 

It  was  just  at  this  time  that  there  swam  into 
the  ken  of  a  distinguished  British  watcher  of  the 
skies  a  new  planet,  which,  with  perhaps  a  pardon- 
able loyalty,  he  called  the  Georgium  Sidus.  As- 
tronomy herself,  who  seldom  stoops  to  flatter 
kings,  has  since  called  it  after  the  name  of  the 
finder,  "Herschel,"  or,  more  commonly,  Uranus, 
The  tidings  of  the  discovery  came  to  us  through 
the  French  savans ;  and  the  data  were  so  complete 
that  our  own  Rittenhouse — himself,  I  may  add,  a 
devout  Presbyterian — was  able  at  the  first  sweep 
to  fix  his  glass  upon  that  outlying  member  of  our 
solar  system. 

We  have  quite  recently  been  informed,  also 
from  France,  of  the  discovery  of  another  planet 
of  a  certain  magnitude,  with  so  many  hours  and 
minutes  right  ascension,  so  much  south  declina- 
tion, and  some  three  degrees,  perhaps,  of  daily 
motion  north.*  The  Georgium  Sidus,  though 
certainly  a  star  of  the  first  political  magnitude, 
had  unfortunately  so  little  right  ascension  in  this 
continent  and  so  many  degrees  of  northern  mo- 

*  Communicated  by  Professor  Henry  of  the  Smithsonian  Institu- 
tion to  the  New  York  Tribune  in  May,  187G. 


ANB  THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE.  101 

tion  that  it  soon  set  in  clouds  beyond  the  lakes, 
and  was  never  able  afterward  to  send  its  rays 
south  of  the  St.  Lawrence. 

That  increased  fervor  and  importunity  was 
given  to  the  prayers  which  now  went  up  for  all 
those  in  authority  might  reasonably  be  presumed, 
and  is  illustrated  by  well-known  facts.  There 
had  been  for  some  time  maintained  in  the  city 
of  New  Yoi-k  by  the  Presbyterian  and  other  cler- 
gy a  weekly  ministers'  meeting  for  devotion  and 
mutual  improvement.  Eminent  among  this  band 
of  Christ's  servants  was  Dr.  John  Rodgers,  pre- 
f  iously  of  St.  George's  parish,  Delaware,  subse- 
quently the  first  moderator  of  the  General  Assem- 
bly, He  was  an  eloquent  preacher,  a  firm  and 
unwavering  patriot,  tlie  friend  and  counselor  of 
George  Washington.  No  sooner  had  the  clock 
struck  the  fated  hour  of  liberty  than  on  his 
motion  the  meeting  was  resolved  into  a  concert 
of  prayer  for  God's  blessing  upon  the  Revolution- 
ary struggle,  and  was  regularly  attended  as  such 
until  the  British  troops  took  possession  of  the 
city.  The  same  sentiment  pervaded  our  entire 
Church.  From  every  Presbyterian  pulpit  in  the 
land,  from  every  Presbyterian  hearth,  went  up 
the  unceasing  voice  of  intercession  for  the  suffer- 
ing country. 

But  the  Presbyterian  clergy  of  the  period  by 
no   means  confined    themselves   to   the  duty  of 

9* 


102  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

prayer  for  the  cause  of  freedom.  In  the  fluc- 
tuations of  the  war  our  own  churches,  hke 
others,  were  frequently  laid  waste.  They  were 
burned  by  accident  or  design.  They  were  occu- 
pied by  the  British  troops  for  riding-schools, 
hospitals,  jails  or  barracks.  The  congregations 
were  dispersed  or  consisted  only  of  non-combat- 
ants. The  young,  the  middle-aged,  in  many 
cases  the  hale  old  men,  were  following  after 
Washington,  in  those  brave  marches  amid  the 
sands  of  New  Jersey,  over  the  rocks  and  snows 
of  Pennsylvania,  till  they  stood  at  length — all 
that  was  left  of  them — in  the  trenches  about 
Yorktown.  The  displaced  pastors  in  many  cases 
went  with  their  people  to  the  field.  They  served 
as  army  chaplains.  They  shouldered  the  musket 
or  bore  the  spontoon  in  the  actual  shock  of  battle. 
Of  more  than  one  of  them  it  may  be  said,  as  of 
Ulric  Zwingle,  Pro  Christo  et  ijro  jmtrla  etiam 
cum  fratribus,  fortiter  piignans,  immortalitis 
certus,  occidit. 

The  records  of  the  synod  mention  the  death  of 
Rev.  James  Caldwell,  whose  sufferings  and  death 
make  one. of  the  darker  scenes  in  the  drama  of 
the  Revolution,  and  of  the  Rev.  John  Rosburgh, 
of  Allen  town.  New  Jersey,  who  "  was  barbarously 
murdered  by  the  enemy  at  Trenton  on  the  2d 
of  January,  1777."* 

*  Minutes  of  the  Synod  of  New  York  and  Philadelphia  under  May 


AND  THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE.  103 

It  was  by  such  experiences  as  these  for  our 
Church  and  our  country  that  we  came  per  ardua 
ad  astra — through  the  stinpes  to  the  stars. 

The  eklers  of  our  Church  were  equally  forward 
in  the  cause  of  freedom — so  much  so,  indeed,  that 
if  we  should  judge  from  numerous  facts  we  might 
almost  conclude  that  our  entire  eldership  during 
that  period  was  divided  into  teaching  elders  and 
fighting  ciders.  A  highly  significant  illustration 
of  this  is  the  fact  that  the  five  officers  who  com- 
manded regiments  or  parts  of  regiments  at  the 
severe  fight  of  King's  Mountain,  Cols.  Williams, 
Shelby,  Campbell,  Sevier  and  Cleveland,  were 
every  one  elders  of  Pi-esbyterian  churches.* 

The  part  played  in  the  course  of  this  struggle 
by  Dr.  Johx  WiTHEESPOOisr  has  been  so  much 
the  theme  of  remark  throughout  these  Centen- 
nial services  that  it  is  something  more  than  su- 
perfluous to  go  into  any  detailed  account  of  him. 
Yet  a  sketch  of  this  kind  would  be  too  defective 
if  he  were  wholly  left  out.  He  came  to  America  in 
1768,  an  adult  and  thoroughbred  Scotchman,  in 
consequence  of  his  election  to  the  presidency  of 
the  College  of  New  Jersey.  He  had  already  been 
distinguished  as  a  vigorous  polemic,  a  keen  satir- 
ist, a  staunch  though  not  always  prudent  defender 
of  evangelical  religion   and  Christian   morality. 

21,  1777.     This   cruel  act  was    not  conimitteil  by  tlie  Hessians,  as 
commonly  stated,  but  by  a  party  of  British  dragoons. 
*  Smyth's  Eccles.  Heiiublicanism,  p.  145. 


104  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

His  Ecclesiastical  Characteristics,  dealing  as  it 
does  in  sarcasm,  irony  and  personal  caricature, 
is  among  the  more  doubtful  methods  by  which  a 
good  cause  may  be  defended.  It  was  an  anony- 
mous exposure  of  the  theological  system  and  moral 
and  religious  character  of  the  loiv  and  sloiv  "mod- 
erates "  of  the  Church  of  Scotland. 

The  work  fell  like  a  bombshell  into  the  camp 
of  the  philosophizing,  theatre-going,  semi-deistical 
clergy,  the  friends  of  Hume,  Lord  Kames  and 
Kobert  Burns.  An  outbreak  of  wrath  followed. 
Dr.  Witherspoon  was  a  member  of  the  presby- 
tery of  Irvine,  and  had  just  been  "  presented  "  to 
the  living  of  Paisley.  The  presbytery  of  Paisley 
took  up  the  book,  pronounced  it  false  and  libel- 
ous, and  lodged  a  complaint  of  it  and  its  reputed 
author  before  the  synod  of  Glasgow.  Dr.  With- 
erspoon defended  himself  in  a  firm  and  ingenious 
speech,  challenging  the  proof  of  his  authorship 
of  the  offensive  publication  and  charging  the 
presbytery  of  Paisley  with  a  gratuitous  and 
unauthorized  attempt  to  destroy  him  indirectly, 
instead  of  coming  manfully  forward,  and  tabling 
charges  against  him. 

The  result  was  his  acquittal  and  triumph.  But 
he  fared  less  successfully  in  a  subsequent  collision 
with  the  civil  courts.  He  was  indicted  for  attack- 
ing certain  persons  by  name  from  the  pulpit, 
found  guilty  of  libel  and  sentenced  to  the  pay- 


AND  THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE.  105 

ment  of  a  considerable  fine.  In  his  defence  be- 
fore the  synod  of  Glasgow,  Dr.  Witherspoon  had 
observed  that  if  he  had  spoken  of  the  Scottish 
Kirk  with  half  the  severity  that  many  English 
writers  had  employed  toward  their  own  clergy 
"  he  shonld  need  to  keep  a  ship  always  ready  to 
ilee  to  another  conntry."  The  ship  arrived  now 
just  at  the  critical  moment,  bringing  to  Dr. 
Witherspoon  an  invitation  to  acce23t  the  presi- 
dency of  the  College  of  New  Jersey.  He 
embarked  and  sailed  away,  leaving  his  sureties 
to  settle  as  they  could  with  the  justices  of  the 
quorum.* 

The  Ecclesiastical  Characteristics  made  an  im- 
pression by  its  severity  and  personality  much 
beyond  what  can  be  explained  to  the  modern 
reader  by  its  literary  merits.  The  irony  is  too 
broad  and  coarse,  and  leaves  the  reader  too  little 
opportunity  for  the  exercise  of  his  own  penetra- 
tion in  discovering  the  application.  Another 
essay  of  the  author's,  an  allegorical  history  of 
the  Christian  Church,  and  particularly  of  the 
Church  of  Scotland,  under  the  figure  of  a  "cor- 
poration of  servants,"  is  both  far  wittier  than  the 
Characteristics  and  much  freer  from  objectionable 
personalities. 

In  all  Dr.  Witherspoon's  miscellaneous  writings 

*  Sprague'a  Annals  of  the  American  Pulpit,  article  John  Wither- 
spoon. 
4 


106  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

the  influence  of  his  familiarity  with  the  writings 
of  Dean  Swift  is  very  observable.  The  treatise 
last  named  is  evidently  modeled  on  the  History 
of  John  Bull,  and  while  wanting  in  the  gro- 
tesque humor  of  Swift's  dialogue  carries  out  the 
allegory  with  almost  as  grave  and  consistent  an 
irony.  With  far  less  genius  than  the  dean  of 
St.  Patrick's,  he  had  the  same  literary  audacity, 
the  same  plain,  nervous  English  style,  the  same 
passion  for  dabbling  in  politics,  and  perhaps  a 
little  too  much  of  the  same  willingness  to  in- 
dulge in  coarse  jests  and  allusions. 

John  Witherspoon  was  as  true  a  type  of  the 
average  Scotch  Presbyterian  mind  as  John  Knox 
himself,  from  whom  he  is  said  to  have  descended. 
Hard,  resolute,  pugnacious,  his  mission  was  to 
fight  the  battles  of  religious  liberty  under  what 
standard  soever ;  and  it  may  be  regarded  as 
probable  enough  that  had  he  come  to  America  at 
an  earlier  age  he  would  have  been  as  ready  to 
draw  the  sword  as  to  wield  the  pen  in  the  cause 
of  independence.  While  quite  a  youth  his  tastes 
led  him  to  look  on  at  the  field  of  Falkirk,  where 
the  Highlanders  of  Charles  Edward  routed  tlie 
royal  army,  and  where,  though  a  non-combatant, 
he  remained  a  j^risoner  in  the  hands  of  the  rebels. 
The  bright  blossoming  of  his  piety  and  culture 
was  guarded  by  the  spines  of  a  high  temper  and 


■AND  THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE.  107 

a  formidable  logic.  He  bore  od  his  very  front 
the  legend  of  his  country's  thistle,  Mmo  7ne 
impune  lacesslt. 

Such  a  man,  though  but  a  recent  immigrant, 
was  as  valuable  as  he  was  a  ready  champion  of 
the  rio-hts  of  the  colonies.     His  sentiments  rap- 
idly  grew  up  to  the  height  of  those  of  the  most 
advanced  patriots.     In  his  letter  "  On  conducting 
the  American  Controversy  "  and  his  "  Thoughts 
on  American  Liberty,''  while  continuing  to  pro- 
fess affection  and  loyalty  to  the  British  throne, 
he  exposed  with  great  clearness  the  actual  situa- 
tion of  affairs  and  sketched  with  the  hand  of  a 
statesman  the  steps  the  colonies  should   pursue 
for  the  vindication  of  their  rights.     In  the  pul- 
pit he  was  equally  outspoken.     On  the  17th  of 
May,  1776,  appointed  by  Congress  as  a  day  of 
fasting  and  prayer,  he  preached  a  sermon  (after- 
ward published  with  a  dedication  to  John  Han- 
cock)  on   the  text,  "  Surely  the  wrath  of   man 
shall  praise  thee,  and  the  remainder  of   wrath 
thou   shalt  restrain."      The  theme  was   "God's 
dominion  over  the   passions  of  men,"  and  was 
drawn  out  into  the  proposition  that  "  the  ambi- 
tion of  mistaken  princes,  the  cunning  and  cruelty 
of  oppressive  and  corrupt  ministers,  and  even  the 
inhumanity  of  brutal  soldiers,  shall  finally  pro- 
mote the  glory  of  God ;  and  in  the  mean  time, 
while  the  storm  continues,  his  mercy  and  kind- 


108  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH     • 

ness  shall  appear  in  j^i'escribing  bounds  to  their 
rage  and  fury." 

In  the  course  of  this  sermon  Dr.  Witherspoon 
said,  "  You  shall  not,  my  brethren,  hear  from 
me  in  the  pulpit  what  you  have  never  heard 
from  me  in  conversation :  I  mean  railing  at  the 
king  personally,  or  even  his  ministers  and  Par- 
liament and  the  people  of  Britain  as  so  many 
barbarous  savages.  Many  of  their  actions  have 
been  worse  than  their  intentions.  That  they 
should  desire  unlimited  dominion  if  they  can  ob- 
tain or  preserve  it  is  neither  new  nor  wonderful. 
I  do  not  refuse  submission  to  their  unjust  claims 
because  they  themselves  are  corrupt  or  profligate, 
though  many  of  them  probably  are  so,  but  be- 
cause they  are  men,  and  therefore  liable  to  all  the 
selfish  bias  inseparable  from  human  nature.  I 
call  this  claim  unjust  of  making  laws  to  bind  us 
in  all  cases  whatsoever,  because  they  are  widely 
separated  from  us,  are  independent  of  us  and 
have  an  interest  in  oppressing  us.  This  is  the 
true  and  proper  hinge  of  the  controversy  between 
Great  Britain  and  the  colonies." 

A  few  days  after  this  sermon  was  preached  Dr. 
Withersj)Oon  became  a  member  of  the  provincial 
Congress  of  New  Jersey,  and  on  the  22d  of  June 
was  chosen  one  of  the  representatives  to  the 
general  Congress.  Only  four  days  elapsed  be- 
tween his  taking  his  seat  in  this  august  body  and 


AND  THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE.  109 

the  2d  July,  •when  tlie  (leclaratioii  was  adopted. 
He  had  not  lieard  the  debates ;  and  though  his 
own  mind  was  irrevocably  made  up  and  he  came, 
indeed,  under  instructions  to  vote  for  independ- 
ence, yet  to  satisfy  his  own  sense  of  self-respect 
he  desired  to  hear  the  whole  argument  in  the 
affirmative  presented.  To  satisfy  him  and  one 
or  two  others  similarly  situated  this  was  agreed 
to ;  and,  by  the  choice  of  his  colleagues,  Samuel 
Adams  came  forward  and  went  over  the  whole 
ground. 

Witherspoon  no  longer  pretended  any  hesita- 
tion. He  had  not  been  willing  to  vote  on  so 
momentous  a  question  without  both  hearing  and 
giving  reasons.  He  declared  himself  fully  satis- 
fied, and  urged  that  the  declaration  should  be 
passed  without  delay.  He  thought  the  country 
was  ripe  for  it,  and  more  than  ripe  :  it  was  in 
danger  of  spoiling  for  the  want  of  it.  Besides 
this  single  dictum  and  the  fragment  of  a  speech 
traditionally  imputed  to  him,  we  have  no  means 
of  knowing  what  particular  services  he  rendered 
the  country  on  the  floor  of  Congress ;  but  his 
published  "  speeches "  are  a  monument  of  his 
enthusiasm  in  the  cause  of  liberty.  In  succes- 
sive pamphlets  he  laid  open  before  the  world  the 
causes  and  character  of  the  war,  warned  the 
British  people  of  the  consequence  of  persisting 
in  it,  and  in  the  name  of  his  adopted  countrymen 

10 


110  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

avowed  that  they  infinitely  preferred  extermina- 
tion to  the  surrender  of  their  liberties.  From 
this  high  flame  of  heroic  argument  he  could 
descend  to  pillory  a  renegade  parson  or  lampoon 
a  tory  printer.  James  Rivington,  besides  his 
other  claims  to  notoriety,  had  "  the  fame  to  be 
lashed  by  his  pen."  In  the  cause  of  independ- 
ence he  fought  with  "  what  trivial  weapon  came 
to  hand."  Lihertati  (for  liberty,  he  thought,  as 
well  as  for  necessity)  quodlibet  telum  utile.  For 
some  enemies  of  freedom  he  scorned  a  sword. 
It  was  honor  enough  if  he  mauled  them  with  a 
bludgeon  or  even  defiled  their  faces  with  dirt. 
His  sun  both  rose  and  set  partly  in  clouds ;  but 
its  middle  course  at  least  was  resplendent  with 
the  light  of  heroism  as  a  patriot,  zeal  and  success 
as  an  educator  of  youth  and  faithful  testimony 
as  a  preacher  of  the  gospel. 

The  formal  histories  of  our  Church  relate  how 
many  others  of  our  clergy  helped  on  the  struggle 
for  independence  by  brave  words  and  brave  deeds, 
by  valiant  service  in  the  field  or  wise  counsel  in 
the  senate.  The  whole  weight  of  the  only  body  of 
clergy  and  churches  which,  out  of  New  England, 
enjoyed  any  appreciable  prestige  or  influence,  went 
undivided  in  aid  of  the  cause  of  liberty.  The 
schism  in  the  Presbyterian  body  had  been  hap- 
pily healed  seventeen  years  before.  The  Church 
was  absolutely  harmonious  and  at  peace  within 


AND  THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE.  Ill 

herself,  and  acted  us  a  unit  in  tlie  struggle. 
There  were  a  few  instances,  like  the  famous  and 
witty  Mather  Byles,  of  Congregationalist  tories, 
not  one  of  a  Presbyterian.  The  social  status,  the 
education  and  culture,  the  eloquence,  the  faith, 
the  prayers  of  our  Church  fathers  were  enlisted  on 
the  side  of  independence;  so  that,  as  that  staunch 
friend  of  the  colonies,  Horace  Walpole,  said, 
"  There  was  no  good  in  crying  about  the  matter. 
Cousin  America  had  run  off  with  a  Presbyterian 
parson,  and  that  was  the  end  of  it.'"^ 

It  is  a  circumstance  of  interest  connected  with 
this  history  that  our  struggle  with  Great  Britain 
had  nothing  whatever  of  the  character  of  a  relig- 
ious war.  When,  twenty  years  earlier,  the  pro- 
vincials fought  by  the  side  of  the  British  regulars 
for  the  mastery  of  the  continent,  it  was  against 
aliens  and  papists,  with  a  legitimate  horror  of 
wooden  shoes,  frogs  and  the  whore  of  Babylon. 
"Virginians,  Britons,  Christians,  Protestants!" 
exclaimed  Samuel  Da  vies  in  1756,  "  if  you  would 

*  Letter  to  the  Countess  of  Ossory,  August  3,  1775. 

He  was  never  tired  of  launching  his  indignant  witticisms  at  the 
parliament  and  the  conduct  of  the  war.  "  The  Americans,  at  least, 
have  acted  like  men.  Our  conduct  has  been  that  of  pert  children  : 
we  have  thrown  a  pebble  at  a  mastiff,  and  are  surprised  it  was  not 
frightened." — December  15, 1774.  "A  great  majority  in  both  houses 
is  as  brave  as  a  mob  ducking  a  pickpocket.  They  flattered  them- 
selves they  should  terrify  the  colonies  into  submission  in  three  months, 
and  are  amazed  to  hear  there  is  no  such  probability.  They  might  as 
well  have  excommunicated  them  and  left  the  devil  to  put  the  sen- 
tence in  execution." — February  18,  1775. 


112  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

save  yourselves  and  your  families  from  all  the 
infernal  horrors  of  popery,  if  you  would  preserve 
your  estates  from  falling  a  prey  to  priests,  friars 
and  hungry  Gallic  slaves,  if  you  would  preserve 
the  pure  religion  of  Jesus  from  superstition, 
idolatry  and  tyranny  over  the  conscience,  strike 
home  in  such  a  cause !" 

But  here  we  were  arrayed  against  our  brethren 
of  the  same  Anglo-Saxon  race,  speaking  the  same 
"dear  English  tongue,"  and  professing  the  same 
evangelical  faith  of  the  Reformation.  Even  those 
unfortunate  Hessians,  who  were  sold  by  the  greed 
of  their  prince  to  kill  and  be  killed  in  battles  in 
the  result  of  which  they  had  no  interest,  were  our 
fellow-Protestants  and,  I  may  say  with  a  little 
allowance,  our  fellow- Presbyterians,  formidable  to 
our  grandmothers  by  their  outlandish  speech  and 
their  bear-skin  caps  much  more  than  to  our  grand- 
sires  by  any  forward  or  ferocious  valor  in  the  field. 
They  were  the  subjects  of  Frederic  II.  of  Hesse- 
Cassel,  himself  a  pervert  to  Pomanism,  while  the 
great  majority  of  his  people  were  of  the  Peformed 
or  the  Lutheran  confessions.  It  is  pathetic  to  be 
told  that  when  nine  hundred  of  these  poor  "driven 
cattle"  laid  down  their  arms  at  Trenton,  and  were 
formed  into  columns  to  be  marched  off  to  their 
prisoners  quarters,  they  lifted  up  their  sad  voices 
in  the  old  familiar  strains  of  a  Vaterland's  hymn, 
"  Ein  feste  Burg  ist  unser  Gott "  or  some  other. 


AND  THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE.  113 

Their  own  "  Avelir  und  waffen  "  had  proved,  in- 
deed, but  a  poor  reliance  in  tlieir  ignorant  struggle 
against  liberty.  But  God  was  their  refuge  and 
their  strength,  a  very  present  help  in  trouble. 
The  war  w^as  neither  carried  on,  therefore,  with 
that  ferocity  which  characterizes  religious  wars, 
nor  did  it  leave  legacies  of  unsatisfied  vengeance 
behind.  Many  of  the  Hessians  remained  as  vol- 
untary settlers  when  the  royal  armies  finally 
withdrew,  and  became  a  valuable  element  in  the 
composition  of  American  society. 

If  we  examine  the  records  of  the  synod  of  New 
York  and  Philadelphia  during  the  war,  we  find 
frequent  evidence  of  the  intense  interest  with 
which  the  struggle  was  viewed  and  the  hearty 
patriotism  of  the  Presbyterian  clergy.  In  the 
pastoral  letter  already  referred  to,  issued  to  the 
churches  the  22d  of  May,  1774,  the  synod  urges, 
**  Be  careful  to  maintain  the  union  that  at  present 
subsists  through  all  the  colonies.  In  particular, 
as  the  Continental  Congress  now  sitting  in  Phila- 
delphia consists  of  delegates  chosen  in  the  most 
free  and  unbiased  manner  by  the  body  of  the 
people,  let  them  not  only  be  treated  with  respect 
and  encouraged  in  tlieir  difficult  service,  not  only 
let  your  prayers  be  offered  up  to  God  for  his  di- 
rection in  their  proceediiigs,  but  adhere  firmly  to 
their  resolutions,  and  let  it  be  seen  that  they  are 

10* 


114  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

able  to  bring  out  the  whole  strength  of  this  vast 
country  to  carry  them  into  execution." 

Kepeatedly  the  synod  appointed  days  of  fasting 
and  humiliation  in  view  of  those  sins  which  had 
brought  down  the  "just  judgment"  of  God  in  so 
destructive  a  war  upon  tlie  colonists ;  and  they  made 
the  last  Thursday  of  each  month  "a  monthly  con- 
cert of  prayer  "  for  its  early  and  successful  termi- 
nation. They  felt  no  difficulty,  as  devout  students 
of  God's  word  and  providence,  in  reconciling  the 
unjust  and  wicked  character  of  the  war  on  the 
part  of  Great  Britain  with  its  righteousness  as  a 
part  of  the  divine  administration  towards  an  ill- 
deserving  generation.  As  subjects,  indeed,  they 
were  the  victims  of  oppression  and  misgovern- 
ment ;  but  as  sinners,  they  laid  their  hand  upon 
their  mouth  and  acknowledged  that  they  received 
no  more  than  the  colonial  iniquity  deserved. 

In  1779  the  synod,  "  taking  into  consideration 
the  great  and  increasing  decay  of  vital  piety,  the 
degeneracy  of  manners,  want  of  public  spirit, 
and  prevalence  of  vice  and  immorality  that  obtains 
throughout  our  land,  and  that  the  righteous  God, 
by  continuing  still  to  afflict  us  with  the  sore  calam- 
ity of  a  cruel  and  barbarous  war,  is  loudly  calling 
the  inhabitants  to  repentance  and  reformation,  and 
as  a  means  thereto  to  deej)  humiliation  and  frequent 
and  fervent  prayer,"  appointed  the  17th  of  August 
to  be  observed  for  that  purpose,  and  renewed  the 


AND  THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE.  1 1 5 

recommendation  for  the  patriotic  monthly  concert. 
Identically  the  same  action,  in  the  same  words, 
seems  to  have  been  taken  by  the  synod  the  year 
following,  and  the  same  month  and  day  fixed 
upon  for  public  humiliation  and  prayer.  In 
1777  the  Continental  Congress  having  appointed 
a  general  fast  to  be  kept  on  the  17tli  of  May,  the 
moderator,  by  his  own  authority,  postponed  the 
meeting  of  synod  till  after  that  day ;  which  was 
allowed  to  pass  pi^o  hac  vice  under  protest. 
Louis  XVI.,  whose  throne  was  already  beginning 
to  totter,  had  become  our  ally ;  and  on  the  17tli 
of  May,  1782,  the  synod  appointed  a  committee,  of 
which-  Dr.  John  AVitherspoon  was  chairman,  to 
prepare  an  address  to  the  French  minister,  con- 
gratulating him  on  the  birth  of  a  Dauj^hin,  "  son 
and  heir  to  the  crown  of  his  royal  master ;"  that 
unhappy  "  Bourbon "  who  died  in  the  prison 
of  the  temple,  but  whom  it  is  still  believed  by 
some  we  had  "  among  us  "  disguised  under  the 
alias  of  Eleazar  Williams,  and  in  the  shape  of  an 
Episcopal  missionary  to  the  St.  Regis  Indians. 


116  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

III. 
STRUGGLE   FOR   RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY. 

The  Presbyterian  Church  came  out  of  the  war 
whose  success  she  had  done  so  much  to  ensure, 
depleted  indeed  in  her  churches,  many  of  which 
had  been  destroyed,  and  in  her  membership,  which 
had  left  large  contingents  on  every  battle-field  of 
the  war,  but  with  lier  organization  intact,  her 
machinery  all  in  working  order,  and  with  a  vig- 
orous salient  life  that  fitted  her  for  an  immediate 
career  of  growth  and  influence.  That  she  stood 
far  in  advance  of  any  other  denomination  in  the 
land  cannot  be  doubted.  During  all  the  preced- 
ing eight  years  of  distraction  and  suffering,  her 
ministry  had  steadily  increased.  The  work  of 
home  evangelization  had  been  systematically 
prosecuted.  Pastors  were  detailed  by  order  of 
the  synod  to  supply  occasional  services  to  vacant 
congregations.  Books  of  "  practical  religion  " 
were  purchased  "  for  distribution  among  the  fron- 
tier inhabitants ;"  missionaries  were  despatched 
to  plant  and  nurse  churches  in  the  feebler  colonies ; 
chaplains  were  commissioned  for  the  army ;  fre- 
quent cases  of  licensure  and  installation  occurred  ; 
the  work  of  discipline  was  faithfully  attended  to. 
The  Indian  fund,  the  widows'  fund,  the  fund 
"  for  the  education  of  poor  and  pious  young  men 
for  the  ministry," — all  these  were  carefully  ad- 


AND  RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  H"^ 

ministered.  In  every  month  of  May  eluring  the 
war  the  synod  hehl  its  regular  "sederunt;  though 
the  disturbed  state  of  the  country  often  prevented 
whole  presbyteries  from  attending.  Day  after 
day  during  the  sessions  the  quaint  record  informs 
us  that  "the  synod  met  according  to  adjourn- 
ment, ubi  post  preces  sederunt  qui  supra  ;"  an  ex- 
pansion of  the  cabalistic  letters  U.  P.  P.  S.  Q.  b. 
found  in  the  earlier  minutes. 

Particularly  deserving  of  mention  is  the  wise 
and  firm  policy  of  the  synod  in  respect  to  the 
qualifications    of    candidates    for   the    ministry 
The  urgent  need  of  ministers  in  various  parts  ot 
the   country  led   to  the    natural   suggestion,   so 
often  renewed  in  later  times,  that  young  men  ot 
suitable  gifts  and  piety  might  be  introduced  to  the 
ministry  after  only  brief  intellectual  discipline 
Such  an  overture  was  made  to  the  synod  in  1776 
by  the  Presbytery  of  New  Castle.     The  synod 
replied  that  "  the  superior  advantages  attending 
an  education  in  public  seminaries  render  it  highly 
expedient  to  encourage  the  young  men  to  finish 
their  academical  studies  in  such  institutions,  as 
means  of  securing  a  learned  ministry  ;  and  pres- 
byteries  are   ordered   to   promote   this   end    by 
warmly  recommending  it  to  those  who  have  the 
ministry  in  view.     Yet  as  presbyteries  are  the 
proper  judges  to  determine  concerning  the  liter- 
ary  and    other   requisite   qualifications   for   the 


118  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

ministerial  office,  it  is  not  intended  to  preclude 
from  admission  to  trial  those  who  have  not  had 
the  opportunity  of  obtaining  iDublic  testimonials 
or  degrees  from  public  seminaries." 

To  the  same  effect  was  a  brief  and  positive 
deliverance  of  the  synod  in  1785.  "An  over- 
ture having  been  brought  in  in  the  following 
terms,  viz.,  '  whetlier,  in  the  present  state  of  the 
Church  in  America  and  the  scarcity  of  ministers 
to  fill  our  numerous  congregations,  the  synod  or 
presbyteries  ought  therefore  to  relax  in  any  de- 
gree in  the  literary  qualifications  required  of  in- 
trants into  the  ministry,'  it  was  carried  in  the 
negative  by  a  great  majority." 

This  was  in  noble  harmony  with  the  doctrine 
of  the  Kirk  of  Scotland  as  set  forth  in  the  first 
book  of  Disci^jline.  "  Neither  for  rarity  of  men, 
necessity  of  teaching,  nor  for  any  corruption  of 
time,  should  unable  j)ersons  be  admitted  to  the 
ministry.  Better  it  is  to  have  the  room  vacant 
than  to  have  unqualified  persons,  to  the  scandal 
of  the  ministry  and  hurt  of  the  Kirk.  In  the 
rarity  of  qualified  men  we  should  call  unto  the 
Lord,  that  he  of  his  goodness  would  send  forth 
true  laborers  to  his  harvest." 

The  Presbyterian  Church  in  America  thus 
maintained  her  hereditary  character  for  a  thor- 
oughly trained  and  cultured  ministry.  Her 
clergy  at  the  close  of  the  war  were  few  in  num- 


A ND  R EL IG 10 US  LIBERTY.  119 

ber,  not  exceeding  probably  one  hundred  and 
fifty ;  but  they  were  men  who  had  borne  tl:e 
test  of  fire ;  the  peers  for  talent  and  accomiDlish- 
ment  of  the  foremost  in  the  State.  They  wore 
the  prestige  of  a  suffering  and  triumj^hant 
martyr-Church,  fully  identified  with  the  spirit 
of  the  country.  If  any  sect  of  Christians  in  the 
newly-founded  republic  could  reasonably  have 
claimed  special  favors  from  the  State  it  was  the 
Church  of  Rodgers  and  Caldwell,  of  Da  vies  and 
Witherspoon,  of  Stanhope,  of  the  Alisons  and 
Blair  Smiths,  and  the  others  whose  conspicuous 
zeal  had  given  the  war  the  popular  character  of 
a  "  Presbyterian  rebellion ;"  men  whose  lives  had 
proclaimed  before  England  and  the  world, 

"  We  must  be  free  or  die,  who  speak  the  tongue 

That  Sliiikespeare  spake;  the  faith  and  morals  liold 
Whicli  Milton  held.     In  everything  we  are  sprung 
Of  earth's  first  blood,  have  titles  manifold."  * 

It  is  not  strange  that  other  sects,  conscious  of 
this  fiict,  looked  upon  her  with  some  jealousy  and 
alarm.  Not  the  slightest  effort  did  our  fathers 
make  to  avail  themselves  of  these  advantages. 
They  desired  nothing  but  equal  rights /or  all  and 
ivit/i  all  Christians,  In  1781  and  again  in  1783 
they  adopted  this  declaratiou  :  "  It  having  been 
represented  to  synod  that  the  Presbyterian  Church 
suffers  in  the  opinion  of  other  denominations  from 

*  Wordsworth,  sonnets  dedicated  to  Liberty,  I.  xv. 


120  THE  PEESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

an  apprehension  that  they  hold  intolerant  prin- 
ciples, the  synod  do  solemnly  and  publicly  de- 
clare that  they  ever  have  and  still  do  renounce 
and  abhor  the  principles  of  intolerance,  and  we 
do  believe  that  all  peaceable  members  of  civil  so- 
ciety ought  to  be  protected  in  the  full  and  free 
exercise  of  their  religion." 

These  just  as  well  as  generous  sentiments  were 
by  no  means  universally  entertained  at  that  time. 
No  sooner  did  the  sun  of  peace  illumine  the  land 
than  Episcopacy,  wdiich  had  wholly  disappeared 
from  view,  came  forth  asiain  and  with  a  sino-ular 
lack  both  of  modesty  and  justice  endeavored  to  re- 
claim its  lapsed  colonial  prerogatives.  Our  Church 
fathers  were  obliged  to  engage  in  a  new  struggle 
for  religious  equality. 

This  struggle  took  place  chiefly  on  the  soil  of 
Virginia,  in  which,  as  already  observed,  Episco- 
j)acy  had  been  most  thoroughly  established.  On 
the  5th  December,  1776,  after  a  debate  lasting 
for  two  months,  in  which  Thomas  Jefferson  and 
other  great  men  of  the  Old  Dominion  took  part, 
the  assembly  of  the  State,  against  the  remonstran- 
ces  of  the  Episcopalians  and  Methodists,  repealed 
all  laws  either  requiring  attendance  on  Episcopal 
services  or  levying  taxes  for  the  support  of  Epis- 
copal worship ;  but  all  churches,  chapels,  parson- 
ages, glebe  lands,  etc.,  originally  the  property  of 
a  people  full  two-thirds  of  whom   belonged    to 


A  ND  RELIGIO  US  LIBERTY.  1 2 1 

other  denominations,  were  still  left  to  the  Epis- 
copal Church.  This  vfus  only  an  imperfect  dis- 
establishment, and  the  adherents  of  that  Church 
by  no  meams  I'elinquished  the  hope  of  regaining 
the  exclusive  privileges  they  had  lost. 

Strong  demonstrations  were  made  toward  sup- 
pressing "  unlicensed  preachers,"  punishing  the 
irregularities  of  ^' sectarian'^  worship,  and  con- 
firming the  Episco})al  Church  in  the  unequal 
privileges  it  still  retained. 

That  great  patriot  and  broad  Christian,  Patrick 
Henry,  brought  forward  in  the  Virginia  legisla- 
ture a  bill  for  the  incorporation  of  all  Christian 
societies  and  the  support  of  public  worship  by 
general  tax.  The  s})lendid  eloquence  and  im- 
mense popularity  of  the  author  gave  dangerous 
advantages  to  the  measure,  and  he  urged  it  for 
two  or  more  sessions  with  characteristic  vehe- 
mence. The  resistance  to  this  bill — a  bill  which 
embodied  in  fact  or  in  clear  prospective  all  the 
evils  of  a  union  of  Church  and  State — was  led 
by  the  Presbytery  of  Hanover  in  Virginia,  and 
it  here  becomes  proper  to  give  a  brief  history  of 
the  origin  of  that  presbytery. 

Previous  to  the  year  1740  there  was  but  a 
single  Presbyterian  church,  so  far  as  is  known,  in 
Eastern  Virginia.  The  few  who  were  not  Epis- 
copalians  were    Baptists  or    Quakers.      In    that 

year   there   was  living   in    Hanover   county    (a 
11 


122  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

district  made  famous  as  the  birthplace  of  Patrick 
Henry  and  Henry  Clay,  and  "  blazed  broader  yet 
in  after  years  "  as  the  scene  of  some  of  the  fellest 
conflicts  of  the  civil  war)  a  well-to-do  planter 
named  Samuel  Morris.  He  by  no  means  belonged 
to  the  upper  class  of  Virginia  society,  but  was  a 
plain  man,  working  with  his  own  hands,  and, 
according  to  a  MS.  statement,  joined  the  business 
of  a  mason  to  that  of  a  j^lanter.  His  soul  had 
famished  under  the  ministrations  of  the  fox-hunt- 
ing, tavern-haunting  parish  clergy.  But  the  Spir- 
it of  God  had  touched  his  heart,  and  the  prov- 
idence of  God  strangely  brought  the  truth  of  the 
Gospel  within  his  grasp.  Reaching  blindly  in 
the  dark  for  some  one  to  guide  him  in  the  way  of 
life,  he  met  the  hand  of  Luther  stretched  out 
across  two  centuries,  and  bearing  the  commentary 
on  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  that  most  individ- 
ual and  subjective  of  all  commentaries,  "  wherein  is 
set  forth  most  excellently  (as  the  title  page  reads) 
the  glorious  riches  of  God's  grace,  and  the  power 
of  the  gospel,  to  the  joyful  comfort  and  confirma- 
tion of  all  such  as  do  hunger  and  thirst  for  justi- 
fication in  Christ  Jesus."  Full  as  it  is  of  Christ, 
and  of  redemption  through  his  blood  alone,  it 
would  scarcely  now  be  considered  the  fittest  work 
to  present  to  an  inquiring  soul.  But  in  Hanover 
county  books  were  few  and  scarce  then ;  and  of 
the  dilute,  sugared  and  illustrated  books  contain- 


AND  RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  123 

ing  salvation  made  easy,  there  were  none.  The 
awakened  mind  of  the  tobacco-phmter  grappled 
with  the  strong,  vigorous  exhibitions  of  gospel 
grace  contained  in  the  commentary  on  what 
Luther  fondly  called  his  epistle,  and  was  led  by 
it  to  a  clear  and  solid  peace  in  believing.  He 
hardly  thought  or  knew  that  he  was  a  converted 
man  ;  but  he  felt  the  love  of  Christ  in  his  heart, 
and  that  love  constrained  him  to  try  and  do  good 
to  the  souls  of  his  neighbors.  He  invited  them  to 
come  to  his  house  on  Sundays  and  hear  him  read 
passages  from  a  book  which  had  exerted  so 
marked  an  influence  on  his  own  feelings.  They 
attended,  and  he  read  to  them  chapter  after 
chapter  of  the  Bible  and  Luther  on  the  Gala- 
tians. 

That  was  all,  absolutely.  They  knew  nothing 
about  extemporary  prayer,  and  none  of  them 
durst  attempt  it.  They  had  neither  books  nor 
culture  for  devotional  singing. 

Dull  service,  we  might  think,  to  bring  together 
the  people  of  a  county !  But  such  a  famine  of 
the  word  had  been  bred  by  the  "  Honeymans," 
the  "  Hagans  "  and  "  Sampsons  "  who  had  been 
sent  over  to  evangelize  the  "  Virginians " — so 
hungry  were  the  people  for  the  bread  of  life — that 
to  enjoy  this  meagre  worship  they  came  trooping 
from  a  circuit  of  twenty,  thirty  or  fifty  miles.  The 
gentleman   planter    rode    out    through    his    loug 


124  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

avenue,  with  his  wife  en  croupe  or  ambhng  on 
her  palfrey  beside  him  ;  the  humbler  farmer  drove 
along  his  mule  team  or  his  ox-cart  loaded  with  his 
family ;  from  the  rude  shanty  and  from  the  old 
English-like  manor-house  on  the  banks  of  the 
Pamunkey  or  the  Chiekahominy  came  the  eager 
throng ;  and  on  the  outside  hung  a  dusky  fringe 
from  the  "  quarter,"  to  catch  what  they  could  of 
that  free  gospel  which  j^roclaims  liberty  to  the 
captive  and  the  opening  of  the  prison  doors  to 
them  that  are  bound. 

The  meetings  increased  in  interest,  and  conver- 
sions began  to  follow.  The  planter's  house  be- 
came too  small  for  the  congregation.  Mr.  Morris 
and  some  of  his  neighbors  agreed  to  club  togeth- 
er and  put  up  a  building — they  had  no  thought 
of  calling  it  a  church — to  accommodate  the  wor- 
shippers. It  was  known  as  Morris'  Keading- 
HousE.  The  attraction  of  this  service  was  such 
that  other  neighborhoods  desired  to  enjoy  the 
same  privilege.  Mr.  Morris  became  a  lay  reader 
at  several  different  and  distant  stations ;  and  the 
inquiry  began  to  grow  into  a  general  awaken- 

In  1743  an  improvement  of  the  spiritual  fare 
came  in  the  shape  of  Whitfield's  Sermo7is,  then 
lately  published,  a  copy  of  which  was  sent  over 
from  Scotland,  and  presented  by  the  owner  to  Mr. 
Morris.     The  parish  churches  were  neglected,  and 


AND  RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  125 

tlie  peoj^le  thronged  to  hear  the  simple  story  of 
the  cross  recited  by  these  iiiiaiitliorized  lips. 

The  clergy  took  the  alarm  and  called  on  the 
courts  to  visit  the  offenders  with  the  prescribed 
penalties  for  absence  from  public  worship.  Mr. 
Morris  and  his  friends  were  summoned  before 
the  justices,  interrogated  and  fined;  he  himself 
twenty  different  times.  The  laws  of  Virginia 
frowned  as  sternly  on  all  i^eliglones  illicitas  as 
did  the  laws  of  the  twelve  tables.  To  secure  any 
toleration  a  worship  must  be  at  least  that  of  some 
"  national  religion."  '•' 

The  dissentients  were  summoned  to  declare  what 
denomination  of  Christians  they  belonged  to. 
The  question  jDuzzled  them  not  a  little.  They 
knew  nothing  of  any  sect  besides  the  Quakers, 
and  they  were  certainly  not  Quakers.  They 
asked  leave  to  consult  together  before  replying 
to  His  Honor's  inquiry.  What  they  knew  of  gos- 
pel truth  they  had  learned  mostly  from  Martin 
Luther.  The  vanity  of  all  outward  services  and 
formal  rituals  when  the  troubled  conscience  is 
crying  out  for  peace,  and  the  solid  ground  of 
hope  presented  in  free  justification  through  the 
grace  that  is  in  Christ  Jesus,  commended  itself 

*  On  the  subject  of  Samuel  Morris  and  the  Presbyterians  in  Vir- 
ginia, see  Foote's  Sketches  of  Presbyterian  Churches,  p.  119 ;  Dr.  Mil- 
ler's Memoir  of  Dr.  John  Rodgers,  [>.  27,  sqq. ;  Dr.  Rice's  History,  p. 
113,  186,  330,  sqfj. ;  Bishop  Meade's  Old  Churches  and  Families  of 
Virginia,  vol.  i.  p.  426. 
11  * 


126  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

to  tlieir  own  experience.  They  came  into  court 
and  answered  that  "  they  were  Ijutherans." 
Lutheranism  was  a  national  religion,  and  though 
the  respondents  only  meant  that  they  agreed 
with  Luther  in  his  views  of  the  gospel,  they  es- 
caped under  this  cover  the  punishment  de- 
nounced against  "  sectarians." 

Two  English  statutes  respecting  religious  wor- 
ship bore,  or  were  alleged  to  bear,  on  the  condi- 
tion of  the  "  Dissenters  "  in  America.  One  was 
the  Act  of  Uniformity  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  as 
further  modified  and  extended  in  the  reign  of 
James  I.  and  Charles  II.,  making  all  dissent 
from  the  worship  of  the  Established  Church 
penal.  The  other  was  the  Toleration  Act  of  the 
Ke volution  government  of  1688,  which  made 
cautious  provision  for  the  relief  of  dissenters. 
It  did  not,  in  terms,  apply  to  the  colonies.  In- 
deed the  specific  mention  of  "  England,  Scotland, 
Ireland,  Berwick-upon-Tweed  and  the  islands  of 
Jersey  and  Guernsey  "  as  the  scope  of  its  oper- 
ation might  seem  to  exclude  them ;  and  the 
king's  attorneys  in  Virginia  always  denied  the 
right  of  the  Presbyterians  to  avail  themselves  of 
its  protection.  It  was  at  best  a  meagre  and  un- 
gracious concession,  and  left  tlie  freedom  of  wor- 
ship hampered  with  vexatious  conditions.'"" 

In  the  varying  and  unsettled  state  of  judicial 

*  See  tlie  act  in  Neal's  History  of  the  Puriians,  Appendix  XIII. 


AND  RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  127 

decisions  on  this  point,  colonial  dissenting 
2:)reacliers  were  treated  with  more  or  less  rigor 
according  to  the  tempers  of  royal  governors  or 
county  justices ;  sometimes  indulged  on  clearing 
themselves  hy  oath  of  all  suspicion  of  Unitarian- 
ism,  popery  or  jacobitism  ;  sometimes  fined  and 
driven  out  of  the  country. 

While  Mr.  Morris  and  his  friends  were  pass- 
ing through  this  ordeal  it  happened  that  the 
Rev.  William  Robinson  came,  preaching  as  an 
evangelist,  into  the  Valley  of  Virginia.  He  was 
the  son  of  a  wealthy  English  Quaker,  but  him- 
self a  Presbyterian,  a  member  of  the  presbytery 
of  New  Brunswick  and  a  zealous,  rousing 
preacher  of  the  gospel.*  He  was  heard  on  some 
occasion  by  persons  who  had  been  accustomed  to 
attend  on  the  reading  services  of  Mr.  Morris. 
The  latter  was  informed  of  this  new  evangelist 
and  of  the  harmony  of  his  doctrines  with  those 
of  Luther  and  Whitfield.  The  result  was  an 
invitation  to  Mr.  Robinson  to  preach  on  a  set 
day  in  Morris'  Reading  House. 

Notice  was  widely  given  and  great  crowds 
came  together  at  the  appointed  time.  But  highly 
recommended  as  Mr.  Robinson  was  for  his  evan- 
gelic zeal  and  faithfulness,  these  simple  souls 
were  jealous  for  the  purity  of  the  gospel.  While 
the  congregation  waited  they  took  the  evangelist 

*  Annuls  of  the  American  Pulpit,  iii.  92. 


128  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

aside  and  put  liim  tli rough  a  course  of  thorough 
examination  on  the  leading  doctrines.  The  re- 
sult was  satisfactory,  and  Mr.  Robinson  preached 
on  that  and  several  following  days  with  great 
acceptance  and  a  manifest  blessing.  They  found 
themselves  in  perfect  accord  and  sympathy  with 
him.  After  a  while  it  occurred  to  them  some- 
how to  ask  him  to  what  denomination  of  Chris- 
tians he  belonged.  He  said  he  was  a  Presbyte- 
rian. They  then  said  that  they  believed  they 
were  Presbyterians.* 

This  was  the  germ  of  that  strong  vigorous 
Presbyterian  Christianity  which  filled  up  and 
overflowed  from  that  district,  and  of  which  the 
presbytery  of  Hanover  was  the  first  organized 
representative.  Mr.  Robinson's  preaching  made 
a  profound  impression.  The  people  wished  to 
express  their  gratitude  by  presenting  him  a  con- 
siderable sum  of  money.  He  declined  to  receive 
it.  They  urged  it  upon  him,  but  still  he  refused. 
They  then  placed  it  secretly  in  his  saddle-bags 
the  evening  before  he  was  to  leave.  Detecting 
the  kindly  fraud,  he  no  longer  resisted,  but  in- 
formed the  donors  that  he  would  appropriate  the 
money  to  the  use  of  a  young  man  of  his  acquaint- 
ance who  was  studying  for  the  ministry  under 
embarrassed  circumstances.      "As  soon  as  he  is 

*  It  is  not  pretended  in  this  brief  historical  sketch  to  give  all  the 
particulars,  but  merely  to  seize  on  the  more  salient  points  of  the 
story. 


AND  RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  129 

licensed,"  said  Mr.  Eobinson,  "  we  will  send  him 
to  visit  yon.  It  may  be  that  you  are  now  by 
your  liberality  providing  a  minister  for  your- 
selves." 

They  little  knew  the  splendid  result  to  which 
they  were  contributing,  for  that  poor  young  man 
was  Samuel  Davies,  the  alpha  in  that  southern 
cross  of  flaming  evangelists  who  poured  the  light 
of  the  gospel  on  the  "Ancient  Dominion."  Feeble 
in  health  and  with  the  prospect,  too  surely  real- 
ized, of  an  early  death,  he  preached  literally  as  a 
dying  man  to  dying  hearers.  A  more  burning 
zeal,  a  more  intense  devotion  to  the  work  of 
saving  men,  a  more  heroic  fidelity  to  truth  and 
duty  has  never  signalized  the  American  pulpit. 
Four  years  after  the  events  just  related,  in  com- 
pany with  his  intimate  and  equally  distinguished 
friend,  John  Rodgers,  he  made  his  way  to  Han- 
over county,  where  he  entered  into  and  super- 
seded the  work  of  the  friends  who  had  helped 
in  his  education.  It  was  only  after  an  energetic 
struggle  that  he  succeeded  in  vindicating  his 
right  to  preach  the  gospel  in  Virginia,  while  his 
associate,  notwithstanding  the  friendly  disposi- 
tion of  Governor  Gooch,  was  rudely  refused  a 
license  and  driven  out  of  the  colony.* 

*  Soon  after  Mr.  Rodgers  reached  Williamsburg,  one  of  tlie  Es- 
tablished clergy  of  Hanover,  who  had  followed  him,  appeared  before 
Sir  William  Gooch  and  complained  that  this  yonng  gentleman  be- 
fore going  to  Williamsburg  had  preached  one  sermon  in  Hanover 


130  THE  FRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

Throiigliout  this  region  Samuel  Davies  con- 
tinued to  preach  with  apostolic  zeal,  wearing  out 
his  frail  body  by  extraordinary  fatigues  and  ex- 
posures, till  called  for  the  short  remainder  of  his 
brilliant  career  to  succeed  Jonathan  Edwards  in 
the  presidency  of  the  College  of  New  Jersey.* 

contrary  to  law,  urging  Sir  William  to  proceed  against  liini  with 
rigor.  Sir  William's  reply  did  equal  honor  to  his  religious  senti- 
ments and  his  official  liberality  :  "Mr. ,  I  am  surprised  at  you. 

You  profess  to  be  a  minister  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  you  come  to  me  to 
complain  of  a  man  and  wisli  me  to  punish  him  for  preaching  the 
gospel !  For  shame,  sir!  Go  home  and  mind  your  own  duty.  For 
such  a  piece  of  conduct  you  deserve  to  have  your  gown  stript  over 
your  shoulders." — Dr.  Miller's  Life  of  Dr.  John  Rodgers,  p.  54. 

See  the  noble  vindication  of  himself  by  Mr.  Davies,  addressed 
under  date  lltli  May,  1751,  to  the  bishop  of  London,  in  tlie  Prince- 
ton Repertory  for  1840. 

*  The  just  and  elegant  inscription  on  his  tombstone  in  the  Prince- 
ton cemetery,  perhaps  from  the  classical  pen  of  Samuel  Finley,  who 
succeeded  him  so  soon  in  the  presidency  and  was  so  soon  laid  beside 
him  in  the  grave,  is  as  follows: 

"  Sub  hoc  marmoresepuichrali,  mortales  exuviie  reverendi  perquam 
viri  Samuel  Davies,  A.  M.,  collegii  nov  Cisesariensis  prtesidis,  futurum 
Domini  adventum  pra^stolantur.  Ne  te,  viator,  ut  pauca  de  tanto 
tamque  dilecto  viro  resciscas,  panlisper  morari  pigeat.  Natus  est  in 
comitatu  de  New  Castle  jiixta  Delaware  3  Novembris,  anno  salutis 
reparatie,  1724.  S.  N.  Sacris  ibidem  initiatus,  19  Februarii,  1747, 
tutelam  pastoralem  ecclesige  in  comitatu  de  Hanover  Virginiensinm 
stiscepit.  Ilii  per  11  plus  minus  annos  ministri  evangelici  laboribns 
indefesse  et  favente  numine  auspicato  perfunctus,  ad  mnnus  jiraesidi- 
ale  collegii  nov  caesariensis  gerendum  vocatus  est,  et  inauguratiis, 
26  Julii,  1759,  S.  N.  Sed,  ])roh  rerum  inane,  intra  biennium  febre 
correptus,  candidam  animam  cijolo  redidit,  4  Februarii,  1761.  Heu ! 
quaui  exiguum  vitse  curriculum  ]  C'orpore  fuiteximis;  gestu  libir- 
ali,  plaeido,  augusto.  Ingenii  nitore,  morum  integritate,  munitlcentia, 
facilitate,  inter  jiaucos  illustris. 

Kei  literaria'  peritus ;  theologus  promptus,  pei-spicax.     In  rostris. 


AND  BELTGTOUS  LIBERTY.  131 

Other  Presbyterian  missionaries  followed  Mr. 
Robinson  into  Virginia.  Congregations  were 
gathered  and  churches  organized ;  and  on  tlie 
3d  of  October,  1755,  the  Synod  of  New  York, 
reaching  over  into  Virginia,  ordered  the  erection 
of  a  new  presbytery  by  the  name  of  the  Presby- 
tery of  Hanover.  The  original  members  were 
Rev.  Samuel  Davies,  John  Todd,  Alexander 
Craisrhead,  Robert  Henrv,  John  Wrisiht  and 
John  Brown.  The  first  meeting  was  appointed 
to  be  held  in  Hanover,  and  opened  with  a  sermon 
by  Mr.  Davies. 

This  was  the  presbytery  that  now^  came  forward 
to  maintain  against  the  eloquence  of  Patrick 
Henry  and  the  zeal  of  Peyton  Randolph  the 
imperilled  cause  of  religious  liberty.  In  the 
most  energetic  terms  they  rejected  for  themselves, 
and  reprobated  for  all  others,  any  share  in  the 
proceeds  of  so  ill-omened  and  illegitimate  a  part- 
nership. They  drew^  with  a  firm  hand  the  line 
of  demarkation  between  the  functions  of  the 
Church  and  the  State ;  showed  the  uselessness  as 
well  as  the  danger  of  attemj^ting  to  support  pub- 
lic worship)  by  compulsory  taxation;  and  insisted 
that  any  such  measure  w^as  but  the  beginning  of 
a  usurpation,  the  end  of  which  no  man  could  de- 

pei"  eloquium  blandum,  mellitimi,  veliemens  simul  et  perstringens, 
nulli_  secundus.  Scriptor  ornatus,  sublimis,  disertus.  Prppsertim 
viro  pietate  ardente  in  Deum  zelo  et  religione  spectandus." — Alden's 
American  Epitaphs,  Pentade  I.,  vol.  i.,  Art.  155. 


132  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

termine.  "  These  consequences,"  they  said  in 
conclusion,  "are  so  plain  as  not  to  be  denied  ; 
and  they  are  so  entirely  subversive  of  religious 
liberty,  that  if  they  should  take  place  in  Virginia 
we  should  be  reduced  to  the  melancholy  necessity 
of  saying  with  the  apostles  in  like  cases,  '  Judge 
ye  whether  it  is  best  to  obey  God  or  men,'  and 
also  of  acting  as  they  acted." 

"  Therefore,  as  it  is  contrary  to  our  principles 
and  interest,  and  as  we  think  subversive  of  re- 
ligious liberty,  we  do  again  most  earnestly  entreat 
that  our  legislature  would  never  extend  any  as- 
sessment for  religious  purposes  to  us  or  to  the 
congregations  under  our  care." 

This  vigorous  protest  decided  the  question  for 
the  time,  and  on  the  third  reading  the  bill  was 
rejected. 

One  other  brief  struggle  remained.  The  idea 
of  the  necessity  of  a  union  of  Church  and  State  in 
some  form  had  been  so  wrought  into  the  Virginia 
mind,  and  the  members  of  the  old  dominant 
Chui-ch  reconciled  themselves  with  so  much  diffi- 
culty to  a  simple  equality  with  other  sects,  that 
on  the  conclusion  of  peace  they  came  forward 
with  a  new  attempt  to  recover  their  lost  prerog- 
atives. The  project  for  a  general  assessment  for 
religious  purposes  was  revived,  and  a  bill  was  in- 
troduced in  the  Legislature  for  securing  to  the 
Episcopal  Churcli  all  the  property,  glebe  lands, 


AND  RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  133 

&c.,  it  had  received  from  the  State  before  the 
Eevohition.  Tliis  involved  the  rebuilding  by 
public  tax  of  all  decayed  or  destroyed  parish 
churches,  the  restoration  of  all  sequestered 
church  effects,  and  possibly  also  the  payment  of 
all  arrears  of  clerical  salaries. 

The  legislature  of  Virgina  was,  to  a  consider- 
able extent,  a  system  of  pocket  boroughs.  The 
old  hereditary  legislators,  the  Nicholases,  Ran- 
dolphs, Lees,  Pendletons,  &c.,  had  all  been  con- 
nected with  the  Established  Church.  They  re- 
ceived the  bill  with  great  favor,  and  there  was 
danger  of  its  being  rushed  through  in  advance 
of  any  resistance.  But  the  ever-vigilant  presby- 
tery of  Hanover  again  came  to  the  front  and 
threw  themselves  into  the  breach.  They  had 
grown  into  veterans  in  the  service  of  religious 
liberty,  and  shrunk  from  no  conflict.  A  prompt, 
decided  remonstrance  from  them  brought  the 
legislature  to  a  pause. 

The  Presbyterian  clergy  seized  the  opportunity 
to  act  in  mass.  They  came  together  in  conven- 
tion, adopted  a  new  memorial  and  sent  Dr.  John 
Blair  Smith,  one  of  the  most  honored  names  in 
the  history  of  the  Church,  to  lay  it  before  the 
House  of  Delegates.  His  argument  of  three 
days'  duration  settled  the  question  finally  and  for 
ever.  The  bill  was  dropped,  never  to  be  revived. 
This  sounded  the  death-knell  of  all  Church 

12 


134  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

establishment  in  America.  Other  States  followed 
or  walked  pari  passu  with  Virginia  in  the  work 
of  reform.  With  comparatively  little  resistance 
the  union  of  Church  and  State  was  swept  from 
the  statute  hooks  of  Delaware  and  Maryland,  of 
New  York,  of  North  and  South  Carolina  and 
Georgia;  and  religion,  released  from  all  trammels 
of  human  imposition,  walked  free  and  majestic 
in  our  emancipated  States. 

I  cannot  but  lament  that  the  name  of  that- 
heroic  presbytery,  which  stood  foremost  in  the 
battle  by  which  this  victory  was  won,  has,  for 
the  present,  disappeared  from  our  roll.  Well 
may  we  be  proud  of  a  church  that  walked  up- 
right and  unfaltering  in  the  path  of  freedom 
when  Patrick  Henry  stumbled. 

With  this  defensive  victory  the  presbytery  of 
Hanover  was  content.  The  Episcopal  Church 
indeed  still  retained  a  large  amount  of  property, 
real  and  movable,  which  had  been  acquired  by 
the  proceeds  of  a  general  tax  on  all  the  inhab- 
itants ;  particularly  the  glebe  lands,  of  which 
most  of  the  parishes  in  Virginia  were  possessed 
to  the  extent  of  not  less  than  two  hundred  acres 
each.  The  first  General  Assembly  of  Virginia, 
after  the  adoption  of  the  State  Constitution  in 
October,  177G,  ordained  "  tliat  there  shall  in  all 
time  coming  be  saved  and  reserved  to  the  use  of 
the  Churcli  by  law  established,  the  several  tracts 


AND  RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  135 

of  glebe  lands  already  piircliased,  the  cliurclies 
and  chapels  already  built,  and  such  as  were 
begun  or  contracted  for  before  the  passing  of  the 
said  act  for  the  use  of  the  parishes ;  all  books, 
2)late  and  ornaments  belonging  to  or  appropriated 
to  the  use  of  the  said  church,  and  all  arrears  of 
money  or  tobacco  arising  from  former  assessments 
or  otherwise." 

This  act  recognized  the  Episcopal  Church  as 
still  "  established  by  law,"  and  preserved  to  it  in 
perpetuity  the  ownership  of  the  glebe  lands  and 
other  church  property  2:>ossessed  before  the  Kev- 
olution.  Being  simply  an  act  of  the  legislature, 
it  was  of  course  liable  to  repeal  by  any  subse- 
quent assembly ;  and  considering  their  jDrevious 
experience,  it  is  not  strange  that  other  denomina- 
tions should  view  Avith  jealousy  the  slightest  ap- 
pearance of  any  concession  of  peculiar  advan- 
tages to  the  Episcopal  Chui-ch. 

But  it  was  not  the  Presbyterians  who  came 
forward  to  prosecute  the  quarrel  against  her.  It 
was  another  body  of  Christians,  the  Baj)tists,  who 
in  their  previous  unorganized  condition  had  suf- 
fered even  more  than  Presbyterians  from  the 
laws  against  sectarian  and  unlicensed  worship, 
that  now,  in  their  hour  of  triumph,  turned 
against  their  late  persecutors. 

It  was  the  "  Baptists  and  their  abettors  "  who 
urged  the  resumption  by  the  State  of  the  Church 


136  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

lands.  This  object  they  prosecuted  year  after 
year  with  unabated  determination,  until,  in  1801, 
success  crowned  their  efforts  and  the  glebes  were 
publicly  sold. 

Dr.  Baird  maintains  that  this  act  of  confisca- 
tion was  unconstitutional,  and  adds  that  "  the 
opposition  to  the  Episcopal  Church  towards  the 
end  of  the  century  was  marked  by  a  cruelty 
which  admits  of  no  apology."* 

Not  throwing  any  doubt  whatever  on  the  cor- 
rectness of  these  opinions,  we  may  yet  observe 
that  none  of  the  melancholy  consequences  appre- 
hended by  the  Episcopal  clergy  followed  this 
spoliation.  The  glebes  had  been  of  little  or  no 
value  to  them.  They  consisted  often  of  wild  and 
unproductive  lands.  The  advantage  of  being  re- 
lieved from  the  odium  of  depending  in  any  way 
on  State  bounty  greatly  overbalanced  the  small 
material  loss.  The  laity  came  up  to  the  demands 
of  the  voluntary  system  and  assumed,  no  doubt 
cheerfully,  the  support  of  their  own  clergy.  The 
character  of  the  latter  underwent  a  great  and 
beneficent  revolution.  Purified  by  trials  and  led 
(after  1827)   by  their  excellent  prelate,  Bishop 

*  Baird's  Religion  in  America,  I.  iii. ;  Collections  of  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  Historical  Societxj  for  1851,  pp.  166-181. 

The  Address  of  the  Rector  of  Antrim  Parish,  on  tlie  proposed  sale 
of  the  glebes  in  Virginia,  is  a  modest  and  pathetic  docnment,  and 
serves  to  show  liow  sweet  are  the  uses  of  adversity  for  clmrclies  as 
•well  as  for  individuals. 


AND  RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  137 

IMcade,  they  took  on  that  devout,  exemplary, 
evaugelical  type  which  has  always  since  charac- 
terized the  Virginia  clergy. 


IT. 

INTERNAL  VIEW  OF  THE  CHURCH  FROM  THE  CLOSE 
OF  THE  WAR  TO  THE  ADOPTION  OF  THE  NEW  CON- 
STITUTION, 1783-1786. 

It  remains  to  add  a  brief  outline  of  the  history 
of  the  synod  from  the  close  of  the  war  to  the  close 
of  its  own  career  as  the  chief  court  of  the  Pres- 
byterian Church. 

Articles  of  peace  between  Great  Britain  and  her 
revolted  colonies  were  signed  at  Paris,  November 
30,  1782,  The  war  had  virtually  terminated  a 
year  before  by  the  surrender  at  Yorktown  of  the 
last  British  army  on  the  soil  of  America.  The 
synod  of  1783  met  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia, 
undisturbed  by  any  apprehensions  of  being 
abruptly  adjourned  to  Bedminster  or  elsewhere 
by  the  approach  of  hostile  forces.  The  attend- 
ance was  smnll.  The  pastors  were  like  men  wdio 
had  just  escaped  a  great  disaster,  and  were  busied 
in  o-atherino;  toofether  their  scattered  effects  and 
studying  to  repair  the  ruin.  Money  was  want- 
ing for  the  expenses  of  travel.  The  irredeemable 
paper  currency  had  sunk  to  only  a  nominal  value. 
It  may  be  mentioned  in  illustration  that  the  janitor 

12  * 


138  FE02I  THE  CLOSE  OF  THE  WAR 

who  waited  on  the  synod  received  for  his  services 
three  dollars  in  specie,  which  seems  to  have  been 
regarded  as  equivalent  to  two  hundred  dollars 
continental  currency,  the  amount  that  was  paid 
the  janitor  the  year  previous. 

The  synod  at  once  applied  itself  to  the  work 
of  repairing  the  spiritual  desolations  caused  by 
the  war.  They  joassed  the  emphatic  disclaimer, 
already  referred  to,  of  any  wish  for  advantages 
over  their  brethren  of  other  denominations. 
They  sent  out  to  the  churches  a  pastoral  letter 
of  congratulation  and  warning  on  the  success 
of  the  American  arms. 

"  We  cannot  liel^D  congratulating  you,"  they 
say,  "on  the  general  and  almost  universal  at- 
tachment of  the  Presbyterian  body  to  the  cause 
of  liberty  and  the  rights  of  mankind.  This  has 
been  visible  in  their  conduct,  and  has  been  con- 
fessed by  the  complaints  and  resentment  of  the 
common  enemy.  Such  a  circumstance  ought  not 
only  to  afford  us  satisfaction  on  the  review,  as 
bringing  credit  to  the  body  in  general,  but  to 
increase  our  gratitude  to  God  for  the  haj)py  issue 
of  the  war.  Had  it  been  unsuccessful,  we  must 
have  drunk  deeply  of  the  cup  of  suffering.  Our 
burnt  and  wasted  churches,  and  our  plundered 
dwellings,  in  such  places  as  fell  under  the  power 
of  our  adversaries,  are  but  an  earnest  of  what  we 
must  have  suffered  had  they  finally  prevailed. 


TO  ADOPTION  OF  NEW  CONSTITUTION.        139 

"Tlie  synod,  therefore,  request  you  to  render 
thanks  to  Almighty  God  for  all  his  mercies,  spirit- 
ual and  temporal,  and  in  a  particular  manner  for 
establishing  the  independence  of  the  United  States 
of  America.  He  is  the  supreme  Disposer,  and  to 
him  belong  the  glory,  the  victory  and  the  majesty. 
AVe  are  persuaded  you  will  easily  recollect  many 
circumstances  in  the  course  of  the  struggle  which 
2)oiut  out  his  special  and  signal  interposition  in 
our  favor.  Our  most  remarkable  successes  have 
generally  been  when  things  had  just  before  worn 
the  most  unfavorable  aspect,  as  at  Trenton  and 
Saratoga  at  the  beginning,  in  South  Carolina  and 
Virginia  tow^ard  the  end,  of  the  war."  They 
specify  among  other  mercies  the  assistance  de- 
rived from  France,  and  the  happy  selection  "  of 
a  commander-in-chief  of  the  armies  of  the  United 
States,  who,  in  this  important  and  dijficult  charge, 
has  given  universal  satisfaction,  wdio  was  alike 
acceptable  to  the  citizen  and  the  soldier,  to  the 
State  in  which  he  w^as  born  and  to  every  other 
on  the  continent,  and  whose  character  and  influ- 
ence, after  so  long  sei-vice,  are  not  only  unim- 
paired but  augmented."* 

The  scarcity  of  copies  of  the  Bible  had  long 
been  felt  as  a  serious  evil.  The  colonies  had  been 
accustomed  to  depend  on  the  mother-country  for 
a  supply,  and  during  the  war   this   source    had 

*  Hodge's  History  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  ii.  495. 


140  FEOM  THE  CLOSE  OF  THE  WAR 

been  cut  off.  An  edition  of  the  Scriptures  was, 
for  their  feeble  typographical  resources,  an  im- 
mense undertaking.  But  in  1781  an  enterprising 
Philadelphia  printer,  Robert  Aitkin,  had  success- 
fully accomplished  it,  and  both  religious  and 
patriotic  motives  led  the  synod  warmly  to  second 
the  effijrt.  "  Takins;  into  consideration  the  situa- 
tion  of  many  people  under  their  care  who,  through 
the  indigence  of  theii-  circumstances,  are  not  able 
to  purchase  Bibles  and  are  in  danger  of  j^erishing 
for  lack  of  knowledge,"  they  ordered  contribu- 
tions to  be  made  for  this  purpose  in  all  congrega- 
tions, and  appointed  a  committee  to  receive  and 
apply  them.  "  And  as  Mr.  Aitkin,  from  laudable 
motives  and  with  great  expense,  hath  undertaken 
and  executed  an  elegant  impression  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  which  on  account  of  the  importation 
of  Bibles  from  Europe  will  be  very  injurious  to 
his  temporal  circumstances,  synod  further  agree 
that  the  said  committee  shall  purchase  Bibles  of 
the  said  impression  and  no  other;  and  earnestly 
recommend  it  to  all  to  purchase  such  in  preference 
to  any  other." 

Whatever  brings  appropriately  into  view  the 
character  of  that  illustrious  chief  whom  Provi- 
dence had  indeed  preserved,  as  Da  vies  propheti- 
cally saw,  "  for  some  important  service  to  his 
country,"  and  who  had  shown  in  his  own  example 
"  how  noble  a  virtue  is  patience,  and  how  sure, 


TO  ADOPTION  OF  NEW  CONSTITUTION.        141 

when  rightly  exercised,  of  its  own  reward,"  will 
be  regarded  as  suitable  for  these  pages. 

Dr.  John  Rodgers  had  served  during  a  part 
of  the  war  as  chaplain  of  Heath's  brigade.  The 
Christian  philanthropy  and  the  resources  of  more 
recent  times  have  provided  that  no  soldier,  even 
of  such  vast  armies  as  those  which  crushed  the 
French  empire  in  1870,  shall  be  unfurnished  with 
at  least  the  New  Testament  Scriptures.  But  be- 
yond the  preaching  of  the  chaplain,  the  revolu- 
tionary troops  enjoyed  no  means  whatever  for 
religious  instruction.  As  the  disbanding  of  the 
army  was  at  hand,  Dr.  Rodgers  earnestly  desired 
that  each  soldier  should  receive  as  a  parting  gift 
from  his  country  a  copy  of  the  Word  of  life. 
The  12mo  edition  of  Mr.  Aitkin,  just  before  is- 
sued, furnished  the  opportunity,  and  Dr.  Rodgers 
addressed  a  letter  to  General  Washington  con- 
gratulating him  on  the  restoration  of  peace  and 
soliciting  his  co-operation  in  carrying  out  this 
scheme.     General  Washington  replied  as  follows : 

Headqtjaktees,  11th  June,  1783. 

"  Deae  Sir  :  I  accept,  with  much  pleasure, 
your  kind  congratulations  on  the  happy  event  of 
peace,  with  the  establishment  of  our  liberties  and 
independence. 

"  Glorious  indeed  has  been  our  contest — glori- 
ous if  we  consider  the  prize  for  which  we  have 


142  FROM  THE  CLOSE  OF  THE  WAR 

contended,  and  glorious  in  its  issue.  But  in  the 
midst  of  our  joys,  I  hope  we  shall  not  forget  that 
to  divine  Providence  is  to  be  ascribed  the  glory 
and  praise. 

"  Your  proposition  respecting  Mr.  Aitkin's 
Bible  would  have  been  particularly  noticed  by 
me  had  it  been  suggested  in  season.  But  the 
late  resolution  of  Congress  for  discharging  part 
of  the  army,  taking  off  near  two-thirds  of  our 
members,  it  is  now  too  late  to  make  the  attempt. 
It  would  have  pleased  me  well  if  Congress  had 
been  pleased  to  make  such  an  important  present 
to  the  brave  fellows  who  have  done  so  much  for 
the  security  of  their  country's  right  and  establish- 
ment. 

"  I  hope  it  will  not  be  long  before  you  will  be 
able  to  go  quietly  to  New  York.  Some  patience, 
however,  will  yet  be  necessary.  But  patience  is 
a  noble  virtue,  and  when  rightly  exercised,  does 
not  fail  of  its  reward. 

"  With  much  regard  and  esteem,  I  am,  dear 
doctor, 

"  Your  most  obedient  servant, 

*'  Go.  Washington." 

The  synod  also  entered  on  measures  for  se- 
curing uniformity  in  the  public  praise  of  the 
Church.  A  committee  was  appointed  to  com- 
pare   all   the    extant  versions   of   psalmody  and 


TO  ADOPTIOy  OF  XEW  CONSTITUTION.        143 

digest  from  tlieiu  "  one  more  suitable  to  our  cir- 
cumstances and  taste  than  any  we  have  got ;"  a 
scheme  which  has  only  been  successfully  carried 
out  in  our  own  immediate  times. 

Action  in  regard  to  marriage  within  the  pro- 
hibited degrees,  as  supposed  to  be  defined  by  the 
Levitical  law ;  in  regard  to  slavery  and  the  bap- 
tism of  slave  children ;  in  regard  to  the  demission 
of  the  ministry  (refusing  to  permit  the  names  of 
secularized  ministers  to  be  dropped  from  the  roll); 
in  regard  to  the  pastoral  visitation  of  common 
schools  (inviting  other  churches  to  co-operate  in 
this  work) ;  catechetical  instruction  in  families, 
etc., — was  taken  during  these  years. 

The  formation  of  new  presbyteries  broadened 
the  geographical  area  of  the  Church ;  and  it  was 
found  impossible  in  the  condition  of  peace,  as  it 
had  been  during  the  disturbance  of  war,  to  se- 
cure the  attendance  of  the  remoter  members. 
So  long  as  it  was  made  the  business  of  no  one  in 
particular  to  attend,  whole  presbyteries  were  not 
infrequently  absent. 

It  was  quite  natural,  therefore,  that  attention 
should  now  be  directed  to  the  necessity  of  j)er- 
fecting  the  organization  of  the  Church,  by  pro- 
viding for  a  representative  assembly  to  be  con- 
stituted of  elected  delegates.  The  thirteen  States 
were  occupied  with  this  question  at  the  same 
time   with    the    thirteen    presbyteries ;    and    the 


144  FROM  THE  CLOSE  OF  THE  WAR 

preliminaries  for  a  General  Assembly  and  a  Fed- 
eral Congress  went  on  pari  passu.  This  measure 
was  first  brought  before  the  synod  by  an  over- 
ture in  1785,  and  was  made  a  special  order  for 
the  year  following,  all  the  presbyteries  being 
notified  and  expressly  charged  to  attend,* 

At  the  time  fixed — viz.,  at  the  sedenuit  of  the 
19th  of  May,  1786 — after  full  discussion  it  was  re- 
solved that,  "  considering  the  number  and  extent 
of  the  churches  under  our  care,  and  tlie  incon- 
venience of  the  present  mode  of  government  by 
one  synod,  this  synod  will  establish  out  of  its 
own  body  three  or  more  subordinate  synods,  out 
of  which  shall  be  composed  a  General  Assembly, 
synod  or  council,  agreeably  to  a  system  hereafter 
to  be  adopted." 

At  this  point  the  present  chapter  closes.  The 
successful  carrying  out  of  this  important  measure, 
the  new  impulse  given  by  it  to  the  growth  of  the 
Church,  her  subsequent  trials  and  triumphs,  fall 
to  be  related  by  another  hand. 

A  few  miscellaneous  remarks  may  be  allowed 
in  conclusion. 

The  Presbyterian  clergy  of  the  Revolutionary 

""  The  thirteen  presbyteries  at  that  time  were  New  York,  New 
Brunswiclc,  First  Phihidelphia,  Second  Philadelpliia,  New  Castle, 
Donegal,  Lewes,  Hanover,  Orange,  Dutchess,  Suflblk,  Redstone  and 
South  Carolina. 


TO  ADOPTION  OF  NEW  COXSTITUTION.        145 

period  were  well-educated  men.  Almost  with- 
out exception  they  w^ere  graduates  of  American 
or  foreign  colleges.  The  era  of  modern  sci- 
ence had  not  yet  dawned,  and  a  far  larger  pro- 
portion of  the  college  curi-iculum  than  now  con- 
sisted of  drill  in  the  elements  of  the  Greek  and 
Latin  lano-uao-es.  French  and  German  were  al- 
most  entirely  unknown.  The  Latin  was  still  to 
a  considerable  extent  the  common  language  in 
which  educated  men  of  different  nations  did  or 
might  communicate  with  each  other.  Latin  epis- 
tolary correspondence  was  still  not  wholly  obso- 
lete. Latin  epitaphs  were  still  almost  universal 
for  scholars,  and  the  official  proceedings  at  college 
commencements  were  conducted  entirely  in  that 
language.  The  ability  to  read  and  w'rite  Latin 
was  therefore  a  necessary  part  of  the  culture  of 
a  Presbyterian  clergyman,  and  it  was  with  jus- 
tice and  reason  that  candidates  for  the  ministry 
were  required  to  present  among  other  "  trial- 
pieces  "  a  Latin  exegesis  on  some  common  head 
in  divinity.  This  they  were  quite  competent  to 
do  with  integrity  and  with  reasonable  correctness 
of  style.  The  surviving  Latin  compositions  of 
the  time  are  not  inferior  to  those  of  the  contem- 
poraneous English  or  Continental  scholars.  The 
very  different  distribution  of  the  students'  time 
in  our  present  academical  and  college  course,  and 
the    introduction   of    the   modern    languages   as 

i:{ 


146  FEOM  THE  CLOSE  OF  THE  WAR 

media  of  communication  between  alien  scholars, 
sufficiently  explains  the  decay  of  Latin  scholar- 
ship among  us.  That  few  candidates  for  the 
Presbyterian  ministry  are  now  able  to  compose 
correctly  in  the  Latin  language,  and  that  the  ex- 
egesis still  required  of  them  furnishes  no  test 
whatever  (except  a  negative  one)  of  their  ac- 
quaintance with  that  language,  is  notorious;  yet 
out  of  regard  to  the  supposed  requirement  of  the 
Form  of  Government,  and  in  oversight  of  the 
alternative  permission  to  employ  "  these  or  other 
similar  exercises  "  as  tests  of  the  candidate's  liter- 
ary fitness  for  the  ministry,  it  is  still  commonly 
insisted  on.  Surely  the  time  has  come  for  dis- 
pensing with  a  measure  which  is  both  futile  and 
fraudulent,  and  tends  to  throw  ridicule  on  the 
serious  business  of  licensing  candidates  to  j)reach 
the  gospel. 

The  pulpit  style  of  the  Presbyterian  clergy  of 
a  hundred  years  ago  presents  generally  a  good 
example  of  strong,  plain,  undefiled  English.  It 
was  wholly  free  from  those  affectations  and  tricks 
of  speech  by  which  feebleness  of  thought  is  some- 
times attempted  to  be  disguised.  The  prose  of 
Dean  Swift,  of  Addison  and  the  English  divines 
of  the  17th  century  was  their  standard.  When 
Samuel  Johnson,  with  his  customary  suavity, 
said  to  Dr.  John  Ewing,  "  Sir,  what  do  you  know 
in  America?     You    never   read.     You  have  no 


TO  ADOPTION  OF  NEW  CONSTITUTION.        147 

books  there,"  "  Pardon  me,  sir,"  was  the  reply, 
"we  have  read  the  Rambler ;^'  which  was  doubt- 
less true  to  a  limited  extent ;  but  the  inflated 
periods  of  that  writer  were  no  more  to  the  taste 
of  American  scholars  than  his  exaggerated  tory- 
isni.  During  the  hundred  years  that  have  since 
passed,  the  language  has  undergone  no  change. 
In  the  works  of  Dr.  Kodgers,  Stanhope  Smith, 
Samuel  Finley  and  their  brethren,  not  a  word 
will  be  found  that  is  not  now  in  good  pulpit  use. 
The  sermons  of  Samuel  Davies  might  be  preached 
to-day,  and  only  excite  surprise  for  the  somewhat 
elaborate  eloquence  of  the  style,  and  the  extraor- 
dinary force  and  pungency  of  their  dealing  with 
the  conscience.  Indeed,  it  was  only  in  the  colo- 
nial pulpit  that  the  evangelical  preaching  of  Howe 
and  Baxter  found  an  uninterrupted  succession. 
The  English  language  in  its  higher  purity  of 
written  and  spoken  use,  and  evangelical  preach- 
ing in  its  fullest  development,  came  across  the  sea 
with  the  colonists,  and  domiciled  themselves  here 
by  the  altars  of  liberty. 

The  church  architecture  of  the  Revolutionary 
period  in  America  was  of  course  of  a  rude  and 
simple  character.  The  natural  arches  of  the 
forest,  from  which  the  churches  were  hewn  by 
the  axes  of  the  worshii:)pers,  as  well  as  the  heavy 
pressure  of  snow  which  the  roofs  were  each 
winter  required  to  sustain,  would  naturally  have 


148  CHURCH  ARCHITECTURE. 

suggested  Gothic  form.  But  scieutific  knowledge 
of  architecture  was  wholly  lacking  in  the  colo- 
nies ;  with  each  new  settlement  the  demand  for  a 
sanctuary  was  immediate,  and  the  people  satis- 
fied their  need  by  the  same  hasty  carpentry  by 
which  the  sons  of  the  prophets  enlarged  their 
accommodations  at  Gilgal.  The  first  rough  log 
churches  had  mostly  given  place  a  hundred 
years  ago  to  plain  white-painted  structures,  with 
straight-backed  pews,  lofty  galleries  and  a  pul- 
pit perched  halfway  between  the  floor  and  the 
ceiling.  Stove,  uj^holstery,  organ,  they  had  none. 
Church  spires  were  by  no  means  common,  and 
bells  were  almost  unknown,  except  in  the  larger 
cities.  Even  in  New  York  an  Episcopal  congre- 
gation was  indebted  to  the  Lutherans  for  the 
loan  of  a  church  bell. 

The  day  of  23eace  and  freedom  had  begun.  The 
ploughshare  of  war  had  broken  up  the  public  in- 
sensibility;  the  sowers  went  forth  to  sow.  Divine 
influences  came  down  as  rain  upon  the  mown  grass, 
and  the  beneficent  fruits  of  revivals  of  religion, 
missions,  and  church  enterprise  of  every  kind 
began  to  appear. 


THE  PERIOD  FROM  THE 

ADOPTION  OF  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  FORM  OF  GOVERN- 
MENT TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME. 

BY  THE 

Rev.  SAMUEL   J.  WILSON,  D.D.,  LL.D., 

PROFESSOR  OF  BIBLICAL  AND   ECCLESIASTICAL  HISTORY,  WESTERN 
THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Independence  Achieved. — Presbyterian  Patriots. — Suffered  in  the 
War. — The  First  General  Assembly. — Its  Men. — A  Common 
•Bond  of  the  Church. — Its  Action. — Shock  of  the  French  Rev- 
olution.—  Impiety  Abounding. — Tlie  Clouds  scattered  by  Re- 
vivals.— 1781  to  1787.— Prayer-Meeting  in  Hampden-Sid- 
ney  College. — Spread  of  the  Work. — Kentucky. — Tlie  Year 
1800. — Froth. — Schism  leading  to  Formation  of  Cumberland 
Presbyterian  Church. — North  Carolina. — Virginia. — Western 
Pennsylvania. — New  Jersey. — Cheering  Reports  of  1803- 
1812. — Extension  of  the  Work  Northward  and  Eastward. — 
From  the  First  a  Missionary  Church. — Aggressive  Agencies. — 
Tlie  Indians.— Presbyterian  ism  a  Promoter  of  Learning. — 
Vital  Forces. — The  Plan  of  Union. — Antagonisms. — Division 
of  1838.— The  two  Bodies.— Civil  War.— Drawing  Together. 
The  Issues  settled. — Reunion 151-215 


FROM  THE  ADOPTION 

OF    THE 

Presbyterian  Form  of  Government 

TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME. 


AMERICAN  independence  has  been  achieved. 
The  colonies  have  taken  their  place  as  free 
and  independent  States  among  the  nations  of  the 
earth.  In  bringing  about  this  the  most  moment- 
ous political  event  of  the  last  century  the  min- 
istry and  laity  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  bore 
an  essential  and  a  conspicuous  part.  These  men 
were  the  descendants  of  the  Huguenots  whose 
blood,  shed  in  the  cause  of  religious  freedom, 
had  baptized  almost  ever}^  acre  of  France ;  of 
the  Dutch,  who  under  William  the  Silent,  had 
struggled  and  fought  against  civil  and  religious 
despotism  amidst  the  dikes  of  Holland ;  of  the 
Scotchmen  who  signed  the  Covenant  with  the 
warm  blood  of  their  veins,  and  who  had  fought 
to  the  death  under  the  blue  banner  of  that 
Covenant ;  of  the  heroes  whose  valor  at  London- 
derry turned  the  scale  in  favor  of  the  prince  of 
Orange  and  secured  the  Protestant  succession  in 

151 


152     FROM  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

England — sons  of  tlie  women  who,  during  that 
memorable  siege,  carried  ammunition  to  the  sol- 
diers, and  in  the  crisis  of  the  assault,  sprang  to 
the  breach,  hurled  back  the  assailants  and  turned 
the  tide  of  battle  in  the  critical,  imminent  mo- 
ment of  the  conflict. 

These  were  not  the  men  to  be  dazzled  by 
specious  pretexts,  or  to  stand  nicely  balancing 
ai-guments  of  expediency,  when  issues  touching 
human  freedom  were  at  stake.  These  were  not 
the  men  to  barter  away  their  birthright  for 
pottage.  They  who  had  endured  so  much  in  the 
cause  of  freedom  in  the  Old  AVorld,  who,  for  its 
sake,  had  left  all  and  braved  the  perils  of  the 
ocean  to  seek  a  refuge  in  the  forests  of  an  un- 
broken wilderness,  were  not  the  men  tamely  to 
submit  their  necks  to  the  yoke,  how  smoothly 
soever  it  might  be  fitted  for  them  by  the  deft 
hands  of  king.  Church  or  Parliament.  Conse- 
quently, the  Presbyterians  in  the  colonies  were 
almost  to  a  man,  and  to  a  woman,  patriots  "indeed, 
in  whom  there  was  no  guile." 

In  a  Presbyterian  community  not  far  from  the 
spot  where  the  first  blood  of  the  Revolution  was 
shed,  in  a  Presbyterian  convention  which  had 
for  its  presiding  officer  a  ruling  elder,  was  framed 
and  promulgated  the  Mecklenburg  Declaration, 
which  embodied  the  spirit  and  the.  principles 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  which 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME.  153 

antedates  tliat  document  by  tlie  sj^^ce  of  a  year 
and  more ;  and  even  earlier  than  this,  within  the 
bounds  of  old  Redstone  Presbytery,  the  "  West- 
moreland Declaration "  was  made  at  Hanna's 
Town,  in  Western  Pennsylvania. 

None  in  all  the  land  better  understood  the 
nature  of  the  struggle,  or  more  thoroughly  appre- 
ciated the  importance  of  the  issue,  than  those 
men.  They  saw  in  the  impending  conflict  more 
than  a  tax  on  tea  or  a  penny  stamp  on  paper — 
more  even  than  "  taxation  w^ithout  representa- 
tion." In  addition  to  political  tyranny  they  per- 
ceived the  ominous  shadow  of  spiritual  despotism, 
which  threatened  to  darken  the  land  to  which 
they  had  fled  as  an  asylum,  and  they  esteemed 
their  fortunes  and  their  lives  a  cheap  sacrifice  at 
which  to  purchase  for  their  posterity  in  succeed- 
ing generations  the  blessings  of  religious  free- 
dom. 

Into  the  struggle,  therefore,  they  threw  them- 
selves heart  and  soul.  With  enthusiastic  devo- 
tion, they  j^ut  at  the  service  of  their  country  the 
last  penny  of  their  substance  and  the  last  droj) 
of  their  blood.  AVherever  a  Presbyterian  church 
was  planted,  wherever  the  Westminster  Confes- 
sion of  Faith  found  adherents,  wherever  the 
Presbyterian  polity  was  loved  and  honored,  there 
intelligent  and  profound  convictions  in  regard  to 
civil  and  religious  liberty  were  developed  as  nat- 


154    FROM  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

urally  as  the  oak  grows  from  the  acorn,  and 
there,  when  the  crisis  came,  strong  arms  and 
stout  hearts  formed  an  invuhierable  bulwark  for 
the  cause  of  human  freedom.  As  the  Spartan 
defended  his  shield,  as  the  Koman  legions  fought 
for  their  eagles,  as  a  chivalrous  knight  leaped  to 
the  rescue  of  his  sweetheart,  so  our  Presbyterian 
ancestors,  with  a  prodigal  valor  and  an  unquench- 
able ardor,  sprang  to  the  defence  of  their  sacred 
rights. 

An  adequate  history  of  their  services,  their 
sacrifices  and  their  sufferings  has  never  been 
written,  and,  alas !  never  can  be  written  now. 
No  monuments  have  been  left  from  which  such  a 
history  can  be  compiled.  In  the  pulpit,  in  the 
halls  of  the  provincial  and  the  Continental  Con- 
gresses, in  the  army  as  chaplains  and  as  soldiers, 
the  ministers  rendered  invaluable  service  by  their 
eloquence,  their  wisdom,  their  learning,  their 
courage  and  their  example,  while  the  laity  took 
into  the  ranks  a  heroism  as  stalwart  as  that  of 
the  Ironsides  of  Cromwell.  Presbyterian  blood 
from  shoeless  feet  tracked  the  snow  at  Valley 
Forge.  From  the  Schuylkill  to  the  Chartiers 
pulpits  rang  wnth  utterances  which  were  at  once 
scriptural  and  patriotic,  and  which  were  so  sound 
and  fearless  and  inspiring  that  they  deserve  to 
take  rank  in  the  series  of  kindred  testimonies  in 
the  Scottish  Church  borne  by  such  men  as  Knox, 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME  155 

Buchanan,  Rutlicrford,  Brown  of  AVampbry, 
Cargill  and  Kenwick.  These  utterances  em- 
bodied principles  which,  emanating  from  the  re- 
public of  Geneva,  consecrated  by  the  holiest 
blood  of  Scotland,  sheltered  and  defended  by 
more  than  Spartan  heroism  and  endurance  in 
the  forests  of  America,  now  underlie  the  institu- 
tions of  every  free  government  on  the  face  of 
the  whole  earth. 

Republicanism  is  Presbyterianism  in  the  State; 
so   that   in    the    victory   of    our   Revolutionary 
forefathers  there  was  a  triumph  of  principles  in 
defence  of  which  our  ancestors  in  the  ecclesias- 
tical line  had  for  generations  poured  out  their 
blood  like  water.     These  principles  could  find  no 
hospitable  or  congenial  home  in  Europe,  and  had 
fled  for  refuge  to  the  great  ocean-bound  wilder- 
ness as  their  last  hiding-place.     A  few  half-clad, 
half-starved  and  not  half-equipped  regiments  of 
provincial  militia  bore  the  ark  which  contained 
the  charter  of  freedom  for  the  nations.     They 
bore  it  bravely  and  well,  and  when  the  clouds  of 
war  drifted  away,  lo !  there  stood  on  these  shores, 
disclosed  to  the  gaze  of  the  world,  a  Cliristian 
republic  which,  as  a  pharos,  flings  its  light  across 
the  ocean  to  guide  the  footsteps  of  nations  in  the 
path  of   liberty,  of   progress   and   of   universal 
brotherhood.      Every   civilized    nation    on    the 
o-lobe  has  felt  tlie  throb  of  our  free  life.     Over 


156      FROM  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

the  ark  of  our  liberties  dwells  tlie  political  sLe- 
kinali  of  the  woi'ld,  to  which  all  the  oppressed 
shall  look,  and  guided  by  which  they  shall  at  last 
be  led  into  a  large  and  goodly  Canaan  of  civil 
and  religious  freedom. 

But  the  war  is  over.  The  transcendent 
achievement  hns  been  won.  After  seven  years 
of  fierce  and  bitter  struggle,  dove-eyed  Peace  has 
spread  over  the  land  her  shadowing  wings,  drip- 
ping with  celestial  benedictions.  The  inchoate 
elements  of  natioiial  life  have  crystallized  into 
a  compact  and  symmetrical  republican  govern- 
ment. The  colonies  have  become  States  and  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  has  been 
adopted. 

Owing  to  their  pronounced  and  intense  patri- 
otism during  the  war,  the  Presbyterian  ministers 
and  churches  hnd  borne  the  brunt  of  the  fury 
(jf  the  enemy.  Pastors  were  driven  away  from 
their  flocks,  churches  were  turned  into  barracks 
or  stables,  and  in  many  instances  were  torn  down 
or  burned.  Congregations  left  without  pastors, 
and  exposed  to  all  the  deleterious  influences  of 
Wiir,  were  scattered  as  slieep  without  a  shepherd. 
Many  churches  could  adopt  tlie  refrain  of  the 
j)rophet,  Zion  is  a  wilderness,  Jerusalem  a  desola- 
tion. Our  holy  and  our  beautiful  house,  where 
our  fathers  pi'aised  thee,  is  burned  up  unth  fhre^ 
and  all  our  pleaFcint  things  are  laid  waste. 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME.  157 

But  as  soon  as  the  sword  was  returned  to  its 
scabbard  the  Church  addressed  herself  to  the  task 
of  restoring  her  broken  walls,  building  up  her 
waste  places  and  gathering  her  scattered  sheep  to 
the  fold  again.  With  a  sublime  faith  and  an  un- 
errins;  intuition  she  divined  the  future  2;reatness 
of  the  nation,  and  hastened  to  make  such  adjust- 
ments in  her  polity  and  organization  as  would 
enable  her  to  meet  worthily  present  and  pros- 
pective responsibilities. 

The  complete  constitution  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church  in  the  United  States  of  America,  contain- 
ing the  Confession  of  Faith,  the  catechisms,  the 
government  and  discipline,  and  the  directory  for 
the  worship  of  God,  was  finally  ratified  and 
adopted  by  the  Synod  of  Ncav  York  and  Phila- 
delphia in  the  year  1788  ;  and  at  the  same  meet- 
ing the  necessary  steps  were  taken  toward  the 
formation  of  a  General  Assembly  by  dividing  the 
synod  into  four  synods,  and  by  ordering  that  a 
General  Assembly,  constituted  out  of  the  "said 
four  synods,"  should  meet  in  Philadelphia  in 
May  of  the  following  year. 

Thus  organized  and  equipped,  the  Cliurcli 
stands  abreast  of  the  new  era,  "  her  loins  girt 
about  with  truth,  her  feet  shod  with  the  prepa- 
ration of  the  gospel  of  peace,"  in  her  hand  "  the 
sword  of  the  Spirit"  and  with  her  face  set  toward 
the  West. 

14 


158      FROM  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

The  first  General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church  in  the  United  States  of  America  met  in 
the  Second  Presbyterian  church  in  the  city  of 
Philadelphia  on  May  21,  1789,  and  was  oj^ened, 
according  to  the  appointment  of  synod,  with  a 
sermon  by  Dr.  Witherspoon. 

In  fancy  let  us  visit  this  small  but  august  body 
of  men. 

In  the  moderator's  chair  is  the  courtly  Dr. 
Kodgers,  and  at  the  clerk's  table  sits  the  chival- 
rous Duffield — whose  ancestors,  reaching  America 
by  way  of  England,  Scotland  and  Ireland,  had 
their  Huguenot  blood  enriched  with  Puritanic 
and  Covenanting  ingredients — who  during  the 
war  had  preached  under  fire,  and  who,  along 
with  Beatty,  had  braved  the  perils  of  the  wilder- 
ness in  crossing  the  Alleghenies,  in  order  to  set 
up  the  standard  of  Presbyterianism  on  the  banks 
of  the  Monongahela,  the  Alleglieny  and  the 
Ohio,  and  to  proffer  the  blessings  of  the  gospel 
to  the  Indians  on  the  banks  of  the  Muskingum. 
On  the  floor  is  Dr.  Witherspoon,  of  distinguished 
presence  and  of  still  more  distinguished  achieve- 
ment, the  eminent  divine,  the  able  statesman,  the 
pure  and  valiant  joatriot,  who  shone  alike  con- 
spicuously in  the  pulpit,  on  the  floor  of  Congress 
and  in  the  president's  chair,  in  whose  veins  ran 
the  blood  of  John  Knox,  and  whose  whole  life 
proved  him  to  be  a  worthy  descendant  of  the 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME.  159 

great  Scottish  Reformer.  Beside  liim,  and  coming 
from  the  same  presbytery  (New  Brunswick),  and 
destined  to  be  his  successor  in  the  presidency  of 
the  College  of  New  Jersey,  is  the  eloquent  and 
learned  Dr.  Stanhope  Smith,  the  founder  of 
Hampden-Sidney  College,  now  in  the  fullness  of 
his  marvelous  powers  and  at  the  zenith  of  his 
splendid  fame,  whose  oratory  recalled  the  grand- 
eur of  Davies  and  did  not  suffer  in  comparison 
with  that  of  Patrick  Henry. 

There,  too,  is  the  polyhistoric,  the  encyclopaedic 
scholar,  the  profound  divine,  the  accomplished 
provost  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  Dr. 
Ewing,  who  on  an  hour's  notice  could  lecture  on 
any  subject  in  the  curriculum  of  the  university, 
who  was  the  peer  of  Rittenhouse  in  mathematics, 
and  who  in  conversation  could  keep  old  Dr.  Sam 
Johnson  at  bay.  From  Baltimore  comes  the 
renowned  Dr.  Patrick  Allison,  who  went  to  that 
place  wdien  it  contained  only  thirty  or  forty 
houses,  and  in  a  log  hut  had  preached  to  a  con- 
gregation of  six  families,  but  w^hose  usefulness 
and  reputation  grew  with  the  growth  of  the  city, 
until,  as  a  preacher,  a  presbyter  and  an  accom- 
plished and  fearless  controversialist,  no  one  stood 
above  him,  and  of  whom  Dr.  Stanhope  Smith 
said,  "  Dr.  Allison  is  decidedly  the  ablest  states- 
man we  have  in  the  General  Assembly  of  the 
Presbyterian   Church."     There,  too,   is   Cooper, 


160     FBOM  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

one  of  the  Apostles  of  the  Cumberland  Valley, 
a  valiant  military  as  well  as  spiritual  leader ; 
and  the  ungainly  but  saintly  Moses  Hoge,  of  Vir- 
ginia, who,  destitute  of  the  natural  gifts  and 
graces  of  oratory,  so  moved  men  by  his  "  blood 
earnestness "  that  John  Randolph  said,  "  That 
man  is  the  best  of  orators  ;"  and  McWhorter,  who 
had  been  the  chaplain  of  Knox's  brigade,  and 
who  in  the  darkest  hour  of  the  Revolution  hastened 
to  headquarters  to  encourage  the  commander-in- 
chief;  and  Azel  Roe,  who  inspired  a  cowardly  regi- 
ment with  courage  and  then  led  them  into  battle, 
and  who  was  as  full  of  humor  as  he  was  of  courage 
and  patriotism ;  and  Latta,  who  with  blanket  and 
knapsack  had  accompanied  members  of  his  church 
to  the  camp  and  the  battle-field ;  and  Dr.  Sproat,  in 
the  pastorate  the  successor  of  Gilbert  Tennent  and 
the  predecessor  of  Ashbel  Green  ;  and  Dr.  Robert 
Smith,  who  at  the  age  of  fifteen,  having  caught 
the  spirit  of  Whitefield  and  having  consecrated 
all  the  strength  of  a  vigorous  body  to  the  work 
of  preaching  the  gospel,  was  abundant  in  labors, 
and  with  his  hand  on  the  plough  never  once  looked 
back  ;  and  Dr.  Thomas  Read,  whose  extensive 
missionary  labors  in  the  wilds  of  Delaware  gave 
him  so  accurate  a  knowledge  of  the  roads,  paths 
and  bypaths  of  the  region,  that  he  was  the  only 
man  who  could  extricate  Washington  and  his 
army  from  the  perilous  position  which  they  occu- 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME.  161 

pied  at  Stanton,  before  the  battle  of  Brandywine, 
so  that  the  modest  pastor  of  Drawyer's  Creek  may 
be  denominated  the  saviour  of  his  country ;  and 
the  genial  Dr.  Matthew  Wilson,  who  was  both 
a  divine  and  a  jDhysician  and  eminent  in  both 
professions, — good  men  and  true,  all  of  them,  who 
had  "  endured  hardness  as  good  soldiers  "  both 
in  the  cause  of  Christ  and  for  their  country. 

In  point  of  numbers  this  assembly  was  not 
large,  there  being  on  the  roll  only  thirty-four 
commissioners,  representing  thirteen  presbyteries, 
but  in  point  of  dignity,  learning,  ability,  zeal  and 
experience  it  compares  favorably  with  any  of  its 
many  illusti'ious  successors.  An  able  committee, 
raised  for  the  pur^^tose,  reported  fifteen  rules  for 
the  government  of  the  body,  which  have  since 
been  supplemented  but  never  improved,  so  that 
substantially  these  are  the  rules  by  which,  to  this 
day,  the  General  Assembly  has  been  governed. 
Drs,  AVitherspoon,  Allison  and  Stanhope  Smith, 
the  ablest  committee  which  the  Assembly  could 
connnand,  drew  up  an  address  to  George  Wash- 
ington, President  of  the  United  States,  which 
address,  as  a  document,  is  worthy  of  the  genius 
and  eloquence  of  these  three  illustrious  men, 
and  which,  while  it  has  nothing  in  it  of  the 
cringing  servility  and  sycophancy  which  are 
begotten  of  the  adulterous  union  of  Church  and 
State,  is  yet,  at  tlie  same  time,  a  dignified  and 


14 


162     FROM  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

loyal  acknowledgment  of  the  "  powers  that  be  " 
as  "  ordained  of  God." 

Regarding  with  apprehension  the  fact  that 
many  of  the  presbyteries  had  failed  to  send  com- 
missioners, and  thoroughly  comprehending  the 
importance  of  holding  together  the  widely-sep- 
arated parts  of  the  Chnrch  by  a  common  bond, 
and  being  as  jealous  against  schism  as  the  Israel- 
ites were  when  they  went  posting  to  Shiloh  to 
demand  of  the  trans-Jordanic  tribes  an  explana- 
tion of  the  altar  of  witness,  the  Assembly  adopted 
a  circular  letter  "urging  in  the  most  earnest 
manner  the  respective  synods  to  take  effectual 
measures  that  all  the  presbyteries  send  up  in  due 
season  their  full  representation,"  so  that  the  scat- 
tered tribes  of  this  Israel  might,  through  their 
representatives,  appear  together  once  a  year  be- 
fore the  Lord  at  the  sanctuary.  Nor  was  the 
deplorable  and  pitiable  condition  of  the  frontiers 
forgotten  or  neglected,  but  received,  as  it  de- 
served, most  earnest  and  solemn  attention.  On 
a  report  of  Drs.  Allison  and  Stanhope  Smith, 
the  synods  were  requested  to  recommend  to  the 
General  Assembly  at  their  next  meeting,  two 
members,  well  qualified,  to  be  employed  in  mis- 
sions on  our  frontiers,  for  the  purpose  of  organ- 
izing churches,  administering  ordinances,  ordain- 
ing elders,  collecting  information  concerning  the 
religious  state  of  these  parts,  and  proposing  the 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME.  163 

best  means  of  establishing  a  gospel  ministry 
among  the  people ;  and  in  order  to  provide 
necessary  funds  the  presbyteries  were  enjoined  to 
have  collections  made  and  forwarded  with  all 
convenient  speed.  This  action  was  in  full  accord 
with  an  unbroken  line  of  deliverances  stretching 
back  to  the  very  beginning  of  organic  Presby- 
terianism  in  this  country.  The  Church  of  our 
fathers  was  poor  of  purse,  but  rich  in  faith ;  and 
though  "  little  among  the  thousands  of  Judah," 
she  had  a  heart  big  enough  to  take  in  the  world. 
From  the  first  she  has  been  a  missionary  Church. 
Woe  be  unto  her  if  she  lose  that  spirit ! 

Desirous,  moreover,  to  spread  the  knowledge 
of  eternal  life  contained  in  the  Holy  Scriptures, 
the  Assembly  adopted  measures  by  which  to  aid 
the  publication  and  dissemination  of  an  Amer- 
ican edition  of  the  Bible,  thus  indicating  the 
genuineness  of  their  Protestantism  by  their  love 
for  and  attachment  to  the  word  of  God  pure 
and  simple. 

Adam  Rankin,  from  the  presbytery  of  Tran- 
sylvania, who,  like  the  thief  in  the  Gospel,  seems 
not  to  have  "  entered  by  the  door,"  but  to  have 
climbed  up  some  other  way,  brought  before  the 
Assembly  a  portentous  overture  to  the  effect  that 
the  Church  had  fallen  into  a  "great  and  perni- 
cious error  in  the  public  worship  of  God  by  dis- 
using  Rouse's   versification   of    David's   Psalms 


164     FROM  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVFRNMFNT 

and  adopting,  in  the  room  of  it, Watts'  imitation." 
Mr.  Rankin  being  heard  patiently  "as  long  as 
he  chose  to  speak,"  which  was  at  "  great  length," 
an  able  and  judicious  committee  was  appointed 
to  confer  with  him  privately  ;  but  efforts  toward 
relieving  his  mind  proving  futile,  he  was  earn- 
estly "recommended  to  exercise  that  Christian 
charity  toward  those  who  differed  from  him  in 
their  views  on  this  matter  which  was  exercised 
toward  himself,  and  he  was  guarded  to  be  care- 
ful not  to  disturb  the  peace  of  the  Church  on 
this  head."  These  reasonable  and  fraternal 
recommendations  were  disregarded  by  him,  how- 
ever ;  and  returning  home,  by  a  fierce  and  fanat- 
ical agitation  of  the  subject,  he  produced  in  the 
Church  in  Kentucky  a  schism  which  for  years 
entailed  lamentable  disaster  upon  the  cause  of 
Christ  in  that  State.  The  temper  and  action  of 
the  Assembly  in  the  premises  show  that  the  policy 
of  the  Church  on  the  question  of  psalmody  was 
settled. 

In  answer  to  an  overture  as  to  whether  the 
"  General  Assembly  would  admit  to  their  com- 
munion a  presbytery  who  are  totally  averse  to 
the  doctrine  of  receiving,  hearing  or  judging  of 
any  appeals  from  presbyteries  to  synods  or  from 
synods  to  General  Assemblies,  because  in  their 
judgment  it  is  inconsistent  with  Scripture  and 
the  practice  of  the   primitive  Church,"  it  was 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME.  165 

said  "  that  altliougli  tliey  consider  tlie  right  of 
appeal  from  the  decision  of  an  infei'ior  judicature 
to  a  su})erior  one  an  important  privilege,  which 
no  member  of  their  body  ought  to  be  deprived 
of,  yet  they  at  the  same  time  declare  that  they  do 
not  desire  any  member  to  be  active  in  any  case 
which  may  be  inconsistent  with  the  dictates  of 
his  conscience."  This  does  not  prove  or  argue 
that  the  Assembly,  which  was  almost  entirely 
composed  of  Scotchmen  and  Irishmen  or  those 
of  Scotch-Irish  extraction,  held  or  sympathized 
with  lax  ecclesiastical  views,  but  it  only  shows 
that  in  peculiar  and  delicate  circumstances  the 
Assembly  acted  cautiously,  prudently  and  char- 
itably. It  would  have  been  marvelously  strange 
if,  after  all  her  testimony  and  all  her  sufferings 
in  defence  of  her  principles,  the  Church  should 
at  this  point  have  tamely  repudiated  these  prin- 
ciples. The  very  calmness  and  mildness  of  the 
answer  rather  show  the  firmness  of  her  convic- 
tions and  the  strength  of  her  position. 

The  Church  at  this  time  consisted  of  four 
synods,  sixteen  presbyteries,  one  hundred  and 
seventeen  ministers  and  four  hundred  and  nine- 
teen churches,  two  hundred  and  four  of  which 
were  vacant.  Single  presbyteries  embraced  whole 
States  and  indefinite  expanses  of  territories  be- 
sides. Pastors  had  parishes  as  large  as  England, 
Scotland  and  Ireland  all  put  together. 


166     FROM  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

The  shock  of  the  French  revolution  was  felt 
on  these  shores.  Infidelity  in  France,  in  the 
name  of  liberty,  equality  and  fraternity,  had 
committed  atrocities  for  which  human  speech 
has  coined  no  fitting  or  adequate  terms.  In  its 
wanton,  blaspliemous  impiety  it  had  violated 
all  sanctities,  it  had  desecrated  all  shrines,  it 
had  trampled  upon  all  rights,  human  and  divine, 
it  had  christened  the  dreadest  instrument  of  mod- 
ern times  the  "  holy  guillotine,"  it  had  striven 
to  quench  the  light  of  hope  in  the  heart  of  man 
by  decreeing  that  "  there  is  no  God  "  and  that 
''death  is  an  eternal  sleep,"  it  had  wreaked  its 
direst  vengeance  on  the  living,  and  then,  hyena- 
like, had  rifled  the  grave  that  it  might  dishonor 
the  bones  and  dust  of  the  illustrious  dead.  It 
has  left  its  track  on  the  page  of  history  as  the 
trail  of  a  filthy  snake,  in  orgies  of  lust  and  in 
carnivals  of  blood.  The  mephitic  atmosphere  of 
its  licentious  and  ribald  atheism  was  wafted  across 
the  ocean,  and  threatened  to  blight  with  a  curse 
the  virgin  life  of  the  young  republic.  If  the 
principles  of  French  infidelity  had  fairly  taken 
root  in  American  soil,  they  would  have  produced 
a  harvest  of  anarchy,  lust  and  carnage  such  as 
they  had  produced  in  their  native  soil ;  and  for 
some  time  after  the  Revolutionary  war  it  seemed 
that  such  acatastrophy  as  this  awaited  the  nation. 

During  the  war  France  was  our  ally,  and  thus 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME,  1 67 

the  syrapatliy  between  the  two  countries  was  close 
and  responsive.  French  fashions,  French  man- 
ners and  French  modes  of  thought  and  of  living 
dazzled  the  minds  of  many.  Some  of  the  lead- 
ing statesmen  of  the  time  and  many  of  the  lower 
politicians  were  avowed  infidels.  French  infidel- 
ity was  discussed  around  the  camp-fires,  in  legis- 
lative halls,  in  social  circles,  at  the  Federal 
capital  and  in  the  backwoods  of  remote  Western 
settlements.  War,  too,  had  left  its  dregs  and  de- 
bris of  vice,  idleness,  drunkenness  and  debauchery. 
The  very  air  w^as  heavy  with  the  poison  of  deadly 
error,  and  the  Church  itself  felt  its  paralyzing 
influence.  Formalism,  indifference  and  skepti- 
cism prevailed  among  j)rofessing  Christians,  while 
many  of  the  pastors  were  mere  "  hirelings  who 
cared  not  for  the  sheep."  The  foundations  of 
religion,  morality  and  of  social  order  seemed  to  be 
giving  way.  In  view  of  this  state  of  things,  the 
General  Assembly,  in  the  year  1798,  issued  a 
pastoral  letter  which  to  this  day  sounds  like  the 
blast  of  a  trumpet.  The  letter  speaks  eloquently 
and  solemnly  of  the  "  convulsions  in  Europe" 
and  of  the  "  solemn  crisis "  in  this  country  ;  it 
points  with  alarm  to  the  "  bursting  storm  which 
threatened  to  sweep  before  it  the  religious  princi- 
ples, institutions  and  morals  of  the  people ;"  it 
frames  a  dreadful  indictment  against  the  age, 
charging  it  with  corruption  of  manners,  prevail- 


168     FR03I  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

ing  impiety,  horrible  profanation  of  the  Lord's 
day,  contempt  for  religion,  abounding  infidelity, 
which  assumes  a  front  of  daring  impiety  and  pos- 
sesses a  mouth  filled  with  blasphemy  ;  and  it  de- 
clares that  among  ministers  of  the  gospel  and 
professors  of  Christianity  there  was  a  degree  of 
supineness,  inattention,  formality,  deadness,  hy- 
pocrisy and  pernicious  error  which  threatened  the 
dissolution  of  religious  society.  A  dark  picture, 
truly,  but  not  a  whit  darker  than  the  subject  which 
it  portrayed. 

Nor  were  such  views  and  forebodings  confined 
to  the  clergymen.  Patrick  Henry,  in  a  letter  to 
his  daughter,  says,  "  The  view  which  the  rising 
greatness  of  our  country  presents  to  my  eyes  is 
greatly  tarnished  by  the  general  prevalence  of 
deism,  which,  with  me,  is  but  another  name  for 
vice  and  depravity." 

The  clouds  which  thus  lowered  over  the  new 
States  and  threw  their  black  shadows  of  evil  por- 
tent far  into  the  future  were  scattered  by  the 
breath  of  the  Spirit  of  God  going  forth  in  power- 
ful and  widespread  revivals  of  religion.  During 
the  Revolutionary  war,  on  the  borders  of  Western 
Pennsylvania,  in  a  rude  fort  into  which  had  been 
driven  the  scattered  families  of  a  sparse  neigh- 
borliood,  and  in  which  they  were  held  besieged  by 
bloody  savages,  through  the  modest,  earnest  con- 
versations of  one  layman,  the  mighty  work  began 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME.  169 

wliicli  for  ever  settled  on  these  shores  the  issue  as 
between  the  gospel  and  French  infidelity.  It  was 
"an  handful  of  corn  in  the  earth,"  in  astrange  seed- 
plot,  but  the  fruit  thereof  to-day,  in  all  these  States, 
and  far  hence  to  the  Gentiles,  "shakes  like  Leb- 
anon." "  It  is  the  Lord's  doings,  and  it  is  won- 
drous in  our  eyes."  From  the  year  1781  to  the 
year  1787  there  was  almost  a  continuous  effusion 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  marvelous  power  upon  the 
churches  in  AVestern  Pennsylvania.  Souls  were 
drawn  as  by  an  irresistible  magnet  to  the  pulpit, 
and  held  for  days  and  nights  under  the  power  of 
the  truth  in  its  enlightening  and  saving  efficacy. 
To  measure  the  results  of  such  a  work  at  such  a 
time,  in  a  society  which  was  in  a  formative  state, 
is  as  impossible  as  it  would  be  to  estimate  the 
contents  of  the  covenanted  blessings  of  Abraham. 
From  that  rude  fort  "  their  line  is  gone  out 
through  all  the  earth." 

When  the  work  had  gone  on  for  five  years  in 
Western  Pennsylvania,  there  might  have  been 
found  across  the  Blue  Ridge,  one  Saturday  after- 
noon, in  a  dense  forest,  a  mile  from  Hampden- 
Sidney  College,  four  young  students  holding  a 
prayer-meeting.  For  the  first  time  in  their  lives 
they  opened  their  lips  in  prayer  in  the  presence 
of  any  except  their  God.  Hidden  in  the  deep 
recesses  of  the  woods,  they  stammered  forth  their 
broken  petitions,  but  no  prayers  uttered  beneath 

15 


170     FROM  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

the  domes  of  grand  cathedrals  and  in  the  pres- 
ence of  thousands  of  rapt  worshipers  were  ever 
more  efficacious.  The  next  meeting  of  these 
students  was  appointed  iu  one  of  their  rooms  in 
the  college,  and  behind  bolted  dooi'S  and  in  sup- 
pressed voices  they  began  to  sing  and  pray ;  but 
the  news  of  the  strange  proceeding  spread  rap- 
idly through  the  college,  and  soon  a  mob  was  col- 
lected at  the  door  of  the  room,  whooping,  thump- 
ing, swearing  and  threatening  vengeance ;  nor 
was  the  riot  quelled  until  two  of  the  professors 
appeared  upon  the  scene  and  vigorously  exercised 
their  official  authority.  A  'prayer-meeting  raised 
a  riot  in  Hampden- Sidney  College!  If  we  take 
into  account  the  additional  fact  that  outside  of 
this  little  praying  circle  there  was  not  a  copy  of 
the  Bible  among  the  students,  we  can  form  an 
idea  of  the  degree  to  which  the  leaven  of  infi- 
delity had  infected  the,  minds  of  the  young  men 
of  that  generation.  From  that  little  prayer- 
meeting  in  the  woods  began  a  precious  work  of 
grace  which  spread  through  the  counties  south 
of  the  James  Kiver  and  swept  up  and  down  the 
great  valley  of  Virginia,  baptizing  in  its  course 
the  two  literary  institutions,  Hampden-Sidney 
College  and  Liberty  Hall  Academy,  which  after- 
ward became  Washington  College,  and  giving  to 
the  ministry  such  men  as  Drury  Lacy,  with  "  the 
silver  voice  and  the  silver  hand,"  William  Hill, 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME.  171 

Carey  Allen,  Nash  Legrand,  James  Ely  the,  John 
Lyle,  James  Turner  and  Archibald  Alexander. 
Thus  the  proud,  vaunting  speculations  and  blas- 
phemous scoffings  and  swollen  insolences  of  infi- 
delity were  silenced  in  Virginia  by  the  power  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  exhibited  in  the  conversion  of 
souls. 

Such  power  as  this  was  not  pent  up  within 
State  lines.  The  venerable  Patillo  came  up  from 
North  Carolina  to  see  the  wonderful  works  of 
God,  and  returning  home  with  mind  and  heart 
aglow  finished,  his  ministry  in  a  blaze  of  religious 
fervor.  A  young  man  who  years  before  had  left 
North  Carolina  in  order  to  seek  an  education  in 
Western  Pennsylvania,  and  who  in  the  mean  time 
had  been  converted  under  the  j^reaching  of  Kev. 
Joseph  Smith,  and  who  was  among  the  first  of 
those  who  were  educated  under  Dr.  McMillan, 
having  been  licensed  by  the  presbytery  of  Red- 
stone, started  southward  to  visit  his  kindred,  and 
on  the  way  stopj^ed  at  Prince  Edward  and  caught 
the  holy  contagion  of  the  revival  there,  was  the 
means  under  God  of  arousing  the  churches  from 
•^a  deathlike  stupor  and  of  diffusing  the  spirit- 
ual awakening  from  the  Dan  to  the  Catawba. 
With  intense  convictions,  a  fearless  and  merciless 
reprover  of  sin,  a  pitiless  scourger  of  formality 
and  hypocrisy,  with  an  impassioned  manner  and  a 
voice  like  seven  trumpets.  Rev.  James  McGready 


172    FR  031  AD  OPTION  FORM  OF  00  VERNMENT 

flasliecl  the  terrors  of  the  law  into  the  minds  and 
hearts  of  men  until  the  stoutest  quailed.  After 
some  years  of  most  arduous  and  fruitful  labor  in 
North  Carolina  he  removed  to  Kentucky,  where 
his  searching,  discriminating  preaching  became 
the  means  of  the  great  awakening  in  that  State, 
the  mighty  influence  of  which,  in  a  refluent  tide, 
swept  over  Tennessee,  the  Carolinas,  Virginia  and 
Western  Pennsylvania. 

The  revival  in  Virginia  and  North  Carolina  had 
brought  into  the  ministry  a  band  of  young  men 
whose  hearts  God  had  touched  in  a  signal  man- 
ner. Never  was  a  knight  of  the  cross  more  eager 
to  encounter  hardship  and  peril  in  the  rescue  of 
the  Holy  Sepulchre  from  the  hand  of  the  infidel 
than  were  these  young  soldiers  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
eager  in  their  flaming  zeal  to  engage  in  arduous 
and  perilous  enterprises  for  the  glory  of  their 
Master.  In  order  to  furnish  them  a  suitable  field, 
the  Synod  of  Virginia,  in  the  year  1789,  organ- 
ized a  committee  on  missions,  which  from  year  to 
year  sent  forth  these  young  heralds  to  carry  the 
gospel  to  destitute  places.  Among  these  went 
forth  such  men  as  Nash  Legrand,  an  Apollo  in 
physical  grace  and  proportion,  with  a  voice  whose 
modulations  were  as  pleasing  as  the  dulcet  notes 
of  a  lute,  and  "  whose  labors  were  more  extensive 
in  spreading  the  revival  than  any  other  agent  em- 
ployed in  the  woi'k;"  William  Hill,  one  of  the  im- 


ro  THE  PRESENT  TIME.  173 

mortal  four  who  held  tlie  prayer-meeting  in  tlie 
woods  at  Prince  Edward ;  the  eccentric,  witty, 
brilliant,  genial  and  eloquent  Carey  Allen,  "whom 
the  common  people  heard  gladly,"  and  whose  in- 
tense ardor  soon  consumed  his  physical  life  ;  Rob- 
ert Marshall,  who,  spared  through  six  hard-fought 
battles  of  the  Revolutionary  war  to  become  a 
soldier  in  a  holier  war,  enlisted  all  the  enthusiasm 
of  his  impulsive  nature  in  the  work  of  j)reaching 
the  gospel  with  earnestness  and  startling  direct- 
ness; Archibald  Alexander,  whom  to  name  is 
to  eulogize;  William  Calhoun,  the  companion  of 
Carey  Allen  in  his  missionary  toils  and  perils ; 
the  brilliant,  able  and  scholarly  John  Poage 
Campbell  (a  lineal  descendant  of  the  seraphic 
Rutherford),  whose  sledge-hammer  logic  dashed 
to  pieces  the  Pelagianism  of  Craighead,  and  who 
Avielded  a  pen  which  was  at  one  time  as  keen  as 
a  Damascus  blade  and  at  another  as  terrific  and 
crushing  as  the  battle-axe  of  a  mailed  knight ; 
the  praying  Rannels ;  James  Blytlie,  whose  room 
had  been  the  rendezvous  of  the  praying  students 
at  Hampden-Sidney  College;  and  Robert  Stuart, 
the  laborious  missionary,  the  accomplished  echi- 
cator,  the  faithful  pastor,  a  Melanclithon  in  coun- 
cil, but  a  Luther  in  battle.  Of  this  number  some 
labored  in  Virginia  and  some  went  to  Kentucky. 
These  were  the  young  guard  of  Presbyterianism, 
who,  snatching  up  the  drooping  standards  of  the 

li  * 


174     FROM  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

sacramental  host,  with  a  holy  chivalry  bore  them 
onward  through  teeming  clangers  and  sore  priva- 
tions, to  plant  them  firmly  and  conspicuously  on 
outpost  and  picket-line.  These  were  the  youth- 
ful heroes  whose  clarion  voices,  tuned  to  the  love 
of  Jesus,  called  the  Church  from  out  her  entrench- 
ments, in  which  she  had  for  long  been  cowering, 
and  made  her  aggressive  in  her  whole  mien,  atti- 
tude and  spirit,  and  led  her  forward  to  victories 
which  rendered  the  spiritual  opening  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  as  bright  as  "another  morn  risen 
on  mid-noon." 

The  last  century  drew  to  its  close  amidst  dense 
spiritual  darkness  in  Kentucky.  The  rapid  in- 
crease of  ]3opulation  had  far  outstripped  the  sup- 
ply of  ministers  and  the  multiplication  of  the 
means  of  grace.  The  labors  of  Father  Rice  and 
a  few  men  of  kindred  spirit  were  wholly  inad- 
equate to  meet  the  demands  of  the  times.  Amidst 
the  contagious  spirit  of  land  speculation  and  the 
exciting  scenes  and  incidents  of  border  life,  many 
who  at  their  former  homes  had  been  exemplary 
Christians  forgot  their  vows,  struck  their  colors 
and  went  over  to  the  ranks  of  the  enemy,  while 
those  who,  although  not  2:>rofessors,  had  been  re- 
sj^ecters  of  religion,  became  o^q.w  scoffers,  and 
open  scoffers  grew  more  and  more  bold  in  in- 
iquity. Mammon,  rum  and  mad  adventure  ruled 
the  hearts  of  men  with  despotic  sway.    Infidelity, 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME.  175 

vice  and  irreligion  came  in  like  a  flood,  wave  on 
wave,  threatening  to  overwhelm  and  sweep  away 
the  foundations  of  all  social,  civil  and  ecclesiasti- 
cal institutions.  "  Tlie  people  sat  in  the  region 
and  shadow  of  deaths  In  the  perilous  crisis 
many  of  the  ministers  of  the  gospel  grew  faint- 
hearted, and  tlirough  cowardice  or  apostasy  be- 
trayed the  cause  which  they  were  sworn  to  de- 
fend. A  stiff  and  stark  formalism,  and  the  un- 
happy controversy  and  schism  on  the  subject  of 
psalmody,  had  wellnigh  destroyed  all  piety  in  the 
Church,  while  in  the  walks  of  public  life  infidel- 
ity prevailed  and  among  the  masses  abominable 
and  high-handed  crime  abounded. 

Such  was  the  desperate  condition  of  things  in 
Kentucky  when  the  young  missionaries  from  Vir- 
ginia and  North  Carolina  entered  it  and  began  to 
preach  the  gospel  with  such  a  fullness  of  convic- 
tion and  with  so  awful  vividness  that  all  classes 
of  men,  from  the  j^hilosophic  skeptic  to  the  red- 
handed  desperado,  were  swayed  by  its  power  as  the 
fields  of  headed  grain  bend  before  the  sweep  of 
the  wind  or  as  clouds  marshal  to  the  step  of  the 
storm. 

The  revival  began  in  the  year  1797  in  the 
churches  which  were  under  the  pastoral  care  of 
Rev.  James  McGready,  who  preached  the  most 
vital  and  solemn  doctrines  of  the  gospel  with  pro- 
digious force  and  startling  directness.     The  relig- 


176     FROM  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

ions  interest  tbns  begun  extended  and  deepened 
until,  in  the  year  1800,  on  sacramental  occa- 
sions, thousands  came  from  far  and  near,  bringing 
with  them  provisions  and  conveniences  for  tempo- 
rary lodging.  This  was  the  origin  of  camp- 
meetings  ;  and  when  once  inaugurated,  they  be- 
came a  distinctive  feature  of  the  times  and  con- 
stituted a  marked  agency  of  the  work  as  it  was 
carried  on.  When  the  camp  was  established,  it 
became,  for  the  time  being,  the  centre  of  all  life 
and  interest.  The  plough  rusted  in  the  furrow,  the 
sickle  was  hung  up  even  in  the  time  of  harvest; 
all  ages  and  all  classes  swelled  the  crowds  which 
poured  in  from  all  sides,  as  the  tribes  of  Israel 
converged  by  all  paths  to  the  tabernacle.  Thou- 
sands of  vehicles,  with  their  thousands  of  neigh- 
ing horses,  filled  the  groves  and  gave  the  ap- 
pearance of  an  army  encamped.  Men,  women 
and  children,  old  age  with  its  staff,  the  child  with 
its  rattle,  the  invalid  with  his  bed,  the  matron 
with  her  cares,  the  maiden  in  the  freshness  of 
her  beauty,  the  young  man  in  the  glory  of  his 
strength,  were  there  by  tens  of  thousands. 

From  the  moving,  teeming  multitudes  the  hum 
of  voices  arose  like  the  distant  roar  of  the  sea. 
Now  the  volume  of  praise  arises  as  the  "  voice 
of  many  waters,"  and  now  all  is  hushed  except 
the  impassioned  tones  of  the  preacher,  which, 
magnetized  by  the  burden  of  the  message  and  by 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME.  177 

intensity  of  emotion,  kindle  to  a  flame  tlic  hearts 
of  the  breathless  throng  as  when  the  wind  drives  to 
race-horse  speed  the  leaj^ing  flames  on  a  diy 
prairie.  The  spectacle  at  night,  with  the  scattered 
tents  and  wagons,  and  the  mnltitudes  of  men, 
women  and  chiklren  and  horses,  all  dimly  revealed 
by  camp-fires,  torches,  lamps  and  candles,  and  the 
deep,  dark,  silent  forest  around,  made  np  a  scene 
fit  for  a  Raphael  to  picture  in  colors  or  for  a 
Milton  to  paint  in  words.  Amidst  scenes  and 
incidents  so  wild  and  strange  and  impressive, 
with  so  many  inflammable  elements  commingling 
and  with  so  many  intense  influences  and  forces 
co-operating  to  j^roduce  the  deepest  conviction  of 
sin  on  the  one  hand  and  to  excite  the  most  ec- 
static devotion  on  the  other,  it  need  not  be  a  mat- 
ter of  astonishment  that  lamentable  extravagances 
both  of  sentiment  and  of  conduct  were  devel- 
oped ;  but  these  extravagances  formed  no  essen- 
tial part  of  the  revival,  and  are  to  be  carefully 
discriminated  from  it.  Some  of  the  ablest  and 
wisest  pastors  who  were  engaged  in  the  work 
solemnly  protested  against  the  "bodily  exercises" 
and  all  their  unseemly  concomitants.  The  Lord 
sent  a  gracious  revival,  but  through  the  folly  and 
vanity  of  man  it  was  marred  and  disfigured  by 
abominable  excrescences ;  or,  in  the  language 
of  the  venerable  Father  Rice,  "  it  was  sadly  mis- 
managed, dashed  down    and   broken  to  pieces," 


178     FROM  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

SO  that  the  work  which  began  under  auspices  so 
bright  ended  in  disastrous  fanaticism,  heresy  and 
schism.  When  the  Spirit  of  God  moved  the 
waters  which  had  been  so  long  stagnant,  profuse 
froth  and  scum  were  thrown  to  the  surflice  in  the 
form  of  New  Lightism,  Universalism,  Arianism 
and  fanaticism. 

The  New  Light  schism  in  its  brief  and  jBtful 
career  swept  up  the  cast-oflP  skins  of  errors,  new 
and  old,  as  they  lay  strewn  along  the  track  of 
time  all  the  way  from  Gnosticism  to  Shakerism, 
and  was  at  last  merged  into  that  creedless  Babel 
of  theological  opinions  founded  by  Alexander 
Campbell. 

The  widesj)read  religious  interest  created  a 
demand  for  ministers  of  the  gospel,  and  at  the 
same  time  begat  a  desire  to  preach  the  gospel  in 
the  minds  of  many  who  had  no  academical  or 
other  training  to  fit  them  for  the  sacred  office. 
The  licensing  and  ordaining  such  men,  in  utter 
and  high-handed  defiance  of  the  requirements  of 
the  Book  of  Discipline,  both  in  regard  to  literary 
qualifications  and  to  the  adoption  and  subscrip- 
tion of  the  Confession  of  Faith,  led  to  the  schism 
which  resulted  in  the  organization  of  the  Cum- 
berland Presbyterian  church. 

From  these  conflicts  the  Church  emerged 
greatly  reduced  in  numbers  and  resources,  it  is 
true,  but,  nevertheless,  purer  and  more  compact 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME.  179 

tliau  before.  Amidst  the  fierce  storms  she  pre- 
served her  standards  intact,  vindicated  tlie  cause 
of  theological  education,  resolutely  refused  to 
abate  an  iota  of  the  conditions  of  subscription  of 
the  Confession,  and  demonstrated  to  all  the  world 
that  in  times  of  high-wrought  excitement  it  is 
safer  to  stand  on  the  rock  of  principle  than  to 
drift  with  the  eddying  currents  of  expediency. 

Notwithstanding  these  deplorable  fanaticisms, 
apostasies  and  lamentable  schisms,  there  was  a 
genuine  and  extensive  work  of  grace  through- 
out the  churches  in  Kentucky  and  Tennessee. 
The  bodily  exercises  were  no  part  of  the 
work  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  revival  was  a 
work  of  God  notwithstanding  the  bodily  exer- 
cises. In  the  prolonged  and  intense  excitement 
the  infirmities  of  human  nature  threw  to  the 
surface  a  great  many  irregularities  and  extraor- 
dinary physical  phenomena  which,  to  a  degree, 
obscured  the  real  work  in  its  progress  and  re- 
sults. The  winnowed  wheat  glides  quietly  into 
the  garner,  while  the  chaff  and  mildew  darken 
and  pollute  the  air. 

In  the  second  year  of  the  present  century  the 
revival  began  at  Cross  Roads,  in  Orange  county, 
North  Carolina,  and  from  that  centre  radiated  its 
spiritual  quickening  light  and  power  through  a 
wide  circle.  Such  was  the  interest  in  hearing 
the   gospel   from  the   living  teacher  that  thou- 


180     FROM  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

sands,  in  the  depth  of  winter,  stood  listening  the 
livelong  day  in  drenching  storms  of  rain,  sleet 
and  snow.  Meetings  were  continued  through 
the  whole  night  to  the  breaking  of  the  day,  and 
then  were  resumed  at  nine  o'clock  on  the  next 
morning.  The  infidel,  the  scoffer,  the  formal 
professor,  the  drunkard,  the  debauchee,  the  giddy 
youth,  the  hardened  criminal,  the  learned,  the 
ignorant,  the  bond,  the  free,  the  master,  the 
slave,  were  all  brought  under  the  resistless  influ- 
ence and  were  made  one  in  Christ  Jesus.  No 
barriers  erected  by  Satan  were  sufficient  to  arrest 
the  progress  of  the  work ;  but  purged  to  a  great 
extent  of  the  extravagances  and  excrescences 
which  had  been  so  proHfic  of  mischief  in  Ken- 
tucky, it  gained  thereby  in  depth  and  power,  and 
has  left  in  the  Carolinas  spots  as  marked  in  the 
memory,  and  as  dear  to  the  hearts,  of  Presby- 
terians, as  the  moors  and  mountains  of  Scotland 
are  sacred  in  the  eyes  of  the  Covenanters. 

In  Virginia  the  revival  began  in  a  little  prayer- 
meeting  of  private  Cliristians  among  the  moun- 
tains where  there  was  no  stated  ministry — another 
instance  of  proof  that  genuine  revivals  are  not 
produced  by  blowing  trumpets  or  by  the  impres- 
sive marshaling  of  great  crowds.  Now,  as  ever, 
the  Lord  is  not  in  the  storm  nor  tlie  earthquake 
nor  the  fire,  but  in  the  "  still  small  voice.''  The 
more  quietly  and  obscurely  a  revival  begins,  the 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME.  181 

greater  is  its  real  })ower.  Tlie  Influence  of  that 
little  band  of  praying  disciples  among  the  moun- 
tains, not  one  of  whom  probably  could  construct  a 
half  dozen  consecutive  sentences  of  good  English, 
rose  like  the  little  cloud  which  the  servant  of 
Elijah  saw  from  the  top  of  Carmel,  and  descended 
in  copious  showei-s  of  blessing  throughout  the 
State  for  many  years  thereafter. 

In  the  autumn  of  the  year  1802  there  were 
marvelous  disjilays  of  divine  grace  in  the  pastoral 
charge  of  Kev.  Elislia  McCurdy,  consisting  of  the 
churches  of  Three  Springs  and  Cross  E,oads  in 
Western  Pennsylvania,  in  which  churches  a 
praying  band  had  for  some  time  before  been  ob- 
serving a  concert  of  prayer  on  each  Thursday 
evening  at  sunset.  The  gracious  influences  thus 
kindled  soon  spread  to  the  congregations  of  Cross 
Creek,  Raccoon,  Upper  Buffalo  and  Chartiers, 
whose  pastors  were  respectively  Rev.  Thomas 
Marquis,  Rev.  Joseph  Patterson,  Rev.  John 
Anderson  and  Rev.  John  McMillan.  The  inter- 
est and  power  of  this  revival  culminated  at  the 
"great  Buffalo  sacrament,"  in  November,  1802,  at 
Upper  Buffalo,  Washington  county,  Pennsylva- 
nia. Vast  crowds  attended  this  meeting,  and 
relisiious  services  were  continued  almost  without 
interruption  from  Saturday  noon  to  Tuesday  even- 
ing, and  all  these  exercises  were  accompanied  with 
marvelous   displays   of    divine    power.     During 

16 


182     FB03I  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

the  progress  of  this  meeting  Kev.  Elisha  McCurdy 
preached  his  celebrated  "  war  sermon,"  under  the 
power  of  which,  according  to  eye-witnesses,  it 
seemed  that  every  tenth  man  had  been  smitten 
down.  Rarely  in  the  history  of  the  Church  have 
such  ministers  labored  toofether  in  a  revival  as 
met  in  this  one — Patterson,  "  full  of  faith  and 
the  Holy  Ghost,"  Marquis  of  the  silver  tongue, 
Anderson,  whose  searching  discourses  penetrated 
the  hidden  places  of  the  human  heart  as  a  sur- 
geon's probe  goes  to  the  bottom  of  a  festering 
wound,  and  the  lion-like  McMillan,  whose 
thunderous  tones  in  preaching  the  terrors  of  the 
Jaw  made  sinners  feel  that  the  trumpet  of  the 
archangel  was  sounding.  Under  the  preaching 
of  such  men  began  the  wonderful  work  of  grace 
which  in  its  progress  reached  and  blessed  "  every 
Presbyterian  congregation  west  of  the  mountains 
in  Pennsylvania." 

Nor  were  these  outpourings  of  the  spirit  con- 
fined to  the  south  and  the  west.  In  the  eastern  part 
of  the  Church  the  revival  influence  was  not  so 
mighty  nor  so  extraordinary  in  its  phenomena, 
yet  it  was  no  less  genuine  or  precious  or  far- 
reaching  in  its  influence  and  results.  In  the  year 
1802  a  deep  and  continued  work  of  grace  began 
in  the  First  church  of  Newark,  New  Jersey,  which 
was  then  under  the  collegiate  pastorate  of  Dr. 
Alexander  McWhorter  and  Rev.  Edward  Dorr 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME.  183 

Griffin.  The  ministry  of  Dr.  McWhorter  had 
been  a  series  of  revivals,  and  the  history  of  this 
ministry  had  a  brilliant  continuation  under  Dr. 
Griffin,  a  physical  and  intellectual  giant,  whose 
splendid  endowments  were  consecrated  without 
reserve  to  the  service  of  his  Lord  and  Master; 
and  whether  preaching  in  a  metropolitan  pulpit 
or  in  a  school-house  or  in  a  cramped  and  dingy 
town-hall,  these  endowments  were  all  brought  into 
play  with  all  their  overpowering  effulgence.  His 
wonderful  endowments  both  of  body  and  of  mind, 
his  majestic  presence  and  his  magnificent  oratory, 
place  him  conspicuously  in  the  front  rank  of  the 
preachers  of  all  the  ages  ;  and  a  revival  of  religion 
was  the  occasion  on  wdiich  he  seemed  to  be  most 
at  home  and  on  which  his  faculties  worked  most 
harmoniously  and  most  brilliantly. 

While  in  commanding  ability  and  Demosthenic 
eloquence  Dr.  Griffin  was  without  a  peer,  there 
were  colaborers  of  his  who  were  not  a  whit  be- 
hind him  in  devotion  and  in  influence.  Such 
were  Rev.  Henry  Kollock,  upon  whom  the  man- 
tle of  Whitfield  seems  to  have  fallen,  Dr.  James 
Eichards,  afterward  the  successor  of  Dr.  G]"iffin 
in  the  First  church  of  Newark,  New  Jersey,  Rev. 
Asa  Hillyer,  whose  every  instinct  was  evangelis- 
tic, and  whose  thoughts  and  prayers  accompanied 
his  gifts  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  the  witty  and 
genial   Armstrong    (Arazi,   D,  D.),   the   amiable 


184     FROM  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

Perrine  (Matthew  La  Kue,  D.  D.),  Robert  Fin- 
ley,  "the  father  of  the  American  Colonization 
Society,"  who,  in  his  enthusiasm  for  the  cause 
which  he  had  espoused,  brought  the  mightiest 
minds  of  the  United  States  Senate  to  sit  at  his 
feet.  These  brethren,  quickened  by  the  spirit 
of  revival,  went  forth  two  by  two  through  the 
destitute  portions  of  New  Jersey,  in  quest  of 
"  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel,"  and  in 
these  missionary  tours  they  were  greatly  blessed. 
Preaching  to  the  miners  among  the  mountains 
they  saw,  as  Whitfield  in  England  had  seen, 
the  tears  of  penitence  wash  white  furrows  down 
the  begrimed  and  hardened  cheeks  of  these  men. 
The  work  was  quite  general  throughout  the  State, 
and  persons  of  all  ages  and  of  all  ranks  and 
classes  were  brought  to  Christ. 

From  the  year  1803  to  the  year  1812  the  narra- 
tives on  the  state  of  religion  which  were  adopted 
by  the  successive  General  Assemblies  are  almost 
uniformly  cheering  and  inspiring  by  their  in- 
telligence of  revival,  of  victory  over  infidelity, 
which  had  been  so  much  dreaded,  of  steady, 
healthful  growth  and  increasing  aggressive  power 
on  the  part  of  the  Church.  One  year  brings  the 
news  that  "  there  was  scarcely  a  presbytery  under 
the  care  of  the  General  Assembly  from  which 
some  pleasing  intelligence  had  not  been  an- 
nounced, and  that  in  most  of  the  northern  and 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME.  185 

eastern  presbyteries  revivals  of  religion  of  a 
more  or  less  general  nature  had  taken  place." 
In  the  following  year  we  hear  of  remarkable 
outpourings  of  the  Spirit  of  God  over  the  "  vast 
region  extending  from  the  Ohio  River  to  the 
lakes,  which  region  a  few  years  before  had  been 
an  uninhabited  wilderness,"  as  well  as  in  the 
Synods  of  New  Jersey,  New  York  and  Albany. 
Then  again  the  glad  tidings  come  up  from  Long 
Island,  from  the  banks  of  the  Hudson  and  from 
the  "  newly-settled  regions  in  the  western  parts 
of  the  State  of  New  York,"  which  desert,  under 
the  auspices  of  grace,  promised  to  become  as  the 
garden  of  the  Lord ;  and  at  another  time  these 
glad  tidings  come  from  Philadelphia,  Cape  May, 
Baltimore  and  Washington  City.  From  time 
to  time  the  delegates  from  the  Congregational 
churches  of  New  England  brought  good  news 
of  revivals  in  Connecticut,  in  Yale  College,  in 
Vermont,  New  Hampshire,  Massachusetts  and 
Maine.  From  the  Merriniac  to  the  Mississippi, 
from  Cape  Fear  to  Cape  Cod,  from  the  Chesa- 
peake to  the  lakes,  came  year  after  year  tidings 
of  revival,  of  the  conversion  of  sinners,  of  the 
discomfiture  of  infidelity,  and  of  the  triumphs 
of  grace,  which  were  more  glorious  than  any 
that  were  ever  bulletined  by  martial  heroes  from 
Nimrod  to  Moltke.  In  all  this  wdde  circle  the 
General  Assembly  from  its  watch-tower  "could 


186     FROM  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

trace  the  footsteps  of  Jehovah,"  could  perceive 
distinctly  amidst  the  tumultuous  strife  the  prog- 
ress of  the  triumphal  chariot  of  the  Lord  of 
hosts,  and  could  see  the  pillar  of  cloud  and  of 
fire  going  before  the  people  as  they  penetrated 
the  great  Western  wilderness.  With  the  smoke 
of  the  "  clearing  "  rose  the  incense  of  prayer  and 
praise.  Thus  into  the  foundations  of  our  national 
institutions  went  the  tempered  mortar  of  sound 
theology  and  of  vital  godliness.  With  these 
fathers  religion  was  not  a  theory  or  a  philos- 
0]3hy,  but  a  life. 

The  narratives  on  the  state  of  religion  fre- 
quently and  eloquently  refer  to  the  conquests  of 
grace  over  infidelity  and  false  philosophy.  They 
tell  how  these  opposing  forces  were  by  the  power 
of  God  driven  from  the  field,  and  how  their 
champions  were  either  converted  or  else  covered 
with  confusion.  They  also  repeatedly  rejoice  in 
the  feet  that  the  educated  mind  of  the  nation 
was  turning  more  and  more  to  the  cross  of  Christ. 
When  we  remember  the  widespread  prevalence 
of  infidelity  in  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth 
century  and  the  front  of  brazen-faced  assurance 
which  it  put  on,  and  when  we  think  of  the  per- 
sistent and  malignant  efforts  which  were  made  to 
brand  Christianity  as  a  vulgar  delusion,  utterly 
unworthy  the  consideration  of  an  intelligent 
mind,  and  when  we  consider  how  this  seductive 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME.  187 

infidelity,  under  the  gnise  of  philosophy  and  re- 
spectability, had  poisoned  the  political  and  social 
life  of  the  nation, — we  can  understand  the  soli- 
citude of  the  Church  in  the  solemn  crisis,  and 
know  why  it  was  that  she  so  rejoiced  when  she 
saw  the  banner  of  the  cross  lifted  up  and  ad- 
vancing, while  the  standards  of  the  enemy  went 
down  amidst  the  panic-stricken  ranks  of  unbe- 
lief. 

Thus  by  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost  the 
gates  of  the  new  century  on  this  continent  were 
swung  open.  The  Sun  of  righteousness  arose, 
and  the  sentinels,  from  Plymouth  Rock  to  the 
peaks  of  the  Cumberland  Mountains,  passed  the 
watchword,  "  The  morning  cometh." 

The  first  pulsations  of  organic  Presbyterianism 
in  this  country  were  the  throbbings  of  missionary 
zeal.  As  early  as  the  year  1707  the  presbytery 
ordered  that  "every  minister  of  the  presbytery 
suj^ply  neighboring  desolate  places  where  a  min- 
ister is  wanting  and  opportunity  of  doing  good 
oifers."  The  entire  ministry  of  the  Church  was 
thus  organized  into  a  missionary  corps.  Like  the 
children  of  Issachar,  they  were  "men  that  had 
understanding  of  the  times  to  know  what  Israel 
ought  to  do."  They  divined  the  coming  grandeur 
of  the  empire  which,  springing  up  in  the  forests 
of  America,  was  to  stretch  "from  sea  to  sea,"  and 


188     FROM  ADOPTIO^'  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

they  recognized  clearly  and  felt  profoundly  the 
supreme  necessity  of  laying  the  foundations  of  this 
emjjire  in  the  principles  of  the  word  of  God,  so 
that  it  miglit  be  able  to  withstand  the  winds  and 
floods  and  earthquake  shocks  which  it  must  en- 
counter in  its  march  down  the  centuries.  The 
Church  and  country  greatly  needed  godly  and 
faithful  ministers,  and  also  the  means  by  which 
these  ministers  could  be  supported.  Earnest  and 
repeated  cries  for  both  men  and  money  were  sent 
to  England,  Scotland  and  Ireland,  and  any  favor- 
able response  to  these  entreaties  awakened  the 
liveliest  sentiments  of  gratitude  in  the  hearts  of 
these  laborious,  self-denying  servants  of  God,  who, 
with  scanty  material  resources,  but  with  a  marvel- 
ous wealth  of  faith,  were  humbly  and  heroically 
discharging  the  obscure  duties  which  belong  to 
the  "  day  of  small  things." 

At  the  first  meeting  of  the  Synod  of  Philadel- 
phia an  overture  was  adopted  to  the  effect  that 
the  several  members  of  the  synod  "  contribute 
something  to  the  raising  of  a  fund  for  pious  uses." 
These  ministers  gave  of  their  j^overt}'-,  and  ac- 
cording to  the  spirit  of  the  overture,  it  was  only 
after  they  had  thus  given,  that  they  miglit  "  use 
their  interest  with  their  friends  on  proper  occa- 
sions to  contribute  something  to  the  same  jDur- 
pose."  They  did  not  merely  inculcate  benevo- 
lence, "as  the  manner  of  some  is,"  but  gave  a 


TO  THE  r RESENT  TIME.  189 

practical  exemplification  of  it.  They  not  only 
pointed  out  the  way  to  their  flocks,  but  led  tlieiu 
in  that  way.  As  I  may  not  traverse  this  part  of 
the  field,  which  has  been  so  thoroughly  canvassed, 
let  it  suffice  to  say  that  the  Presbyterian  Church 
in  this  country,  from  the  very  first,  has  been  in 
heart  and  soul,  in  body  and  spirit,  in  life  and 
limb,  a  missionary  organization. 

The  General  Assembly  took  up  and  carried 
forward  the  work  which  had  been  inaugurated 
by  the  presbytery  and  the  synod.  At  its  first 
meeting  this  subject  occupied  the  earnest  thought 
and  care  of  the  General  Assembly,  and  the  syn- 
ods were  enjoined  to  furnish,  through  the  pres- 
byteries, suitable  missionaries,  and  the  churches 
were  urged  to  take  collections  for  the  cause,  that 
thus  both  men  and  means  might  be  furnished  for 
the  establishment  of  churches  on  the  frontiers. 

In  the  next  year  (1790)  the  Synod  of  Virginia, 
not  having  received  the  official  action  of  the 
General  Assembly,  organized  a  very  efficient 
"  Commission  of  Synod,"  which  sent  its  mission- 
aries from  the  "  bay  shore  to  the  Mississippi." 
I  have  in  another  connection  spoken  of  the  Com- 
mission of  the  Synod  of  Virginia,  of  the  re- 
markable band  of  missionaries  which  that  Com- 
mission sent  forth,  and  of  the  great  Avork  which 
these  missionaries  accomjilished  within  the  bor- 
ders of  Virginia  and  in  Kentucky  and  Tennessee. 


190     FE03I  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

The  Synod  of  North  Carolina  also  inaugurated 
measures  of  its  own  for  advancing  the  picket- 
line  along  the  extensive  frontier.  These  synods 
were  to  report  their  operations  to  the  General 
Assembly. 

By  these  different  agencies  and  from  these 
different  centres  the  aggressive  work  of  the 
Church  was  pushed  vigorously  forward.  The 
missionaries  were  itinerant,  traveling  over  fields 
immense  in  extent  and  bristling  with  difficulties 
and  dangers.  The  General  Assembly  sent  its 
missionaries  mainly  to  Central  New  York,  North- 
ern Pennsylvania  and  to  the  Eastern  Shore  of 
Maryland.  One  circuit  extended  from  Ijake 
George  to  the  north-western  frontier  of  Pennsyl- 
vania. Another  stretched  from  Northumber- 
land county  along  the  branches  of  the  Susque- 
hanna, and  beyond  tlie  head-waters  of  that  river 
northward  to  Lake  Ontario  and  westward  to 
Lake  Erie.  At  tlie  beginning  of  the  century 
the  Synod  of  North  Carolina  had  sent  its  mis- 
sionaries, in  connection  with  the  missionaries  of 
the  General  Assembly,  westwartl  to  the  Missis- 
sippi and  southw^ard  wellnigh  to  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico. 

In  these  aggressive  movements  of  the  Church 
the  Indians  were  not  forgotten ;  the  woi'k  of 
"  gospelizing  "  them  occupied  the  early  and  earn- 
est attention  of  the  General  Assembly.     Abun- 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME.  191 

clant  and  urgent  incentives  to  such  an  enterprise 
were  found  in  the  condition  and  necessities  of 
these  savage  tribes,  while  splendid  examples  of 
devotion  and  success  in  this  field  were  on  record 
as  a  sanction  and  an  encouragement  in  the  un- 
dertaking. The  immortal  author  of  The  Treatise 
on  the  Will,  "  the  greatest  divine  of  the  age," 
had  spent  the  fullest  and  the  ripest  of  his  years 
among  the  Indians  at  Stockbridge,  Massachu- 
setts ;  and  Brainerd,  by  his  labors  and  apostolic 
zeal  among  the  same  people  on  the  Delaware 
and  the  Susquehanna,  had  given  to  Christendom 
new  ideas  on  the  subject  of  missionary  consecra- 
tion and  enthusiasm,  and  on  the  power  of  the 
gospel  as  a  saving  and  civilizing  agent  among 
the  lowest  and  most  degraded  classes.  Under 
the  power  of  such  incentives,  and  in  the  light  of 
these  great  examj^les,  the  gospel  was  preached 
to  the  Indians  along  the  frontier  from  the  Hud- 
son to  the  Mississippi.  Our  forefathers,  with 
their  trusty  rifles  as  a  defence  in  the  one  hand, 
held  out  with  the  other  the  Bread  of  Life  and 
the  blessings  of  civilization  and  education  to 
their  treacherous  and  bloody  foes.  The  dreadful 
war-whoop  was  answered  by  the  trumj^et  of  the 
gospel  of  peace.  The  Church  kept  bravely 
abreast  of  the  line  of  population  as  it  advanced 
westward.  The  watchmen  of  Zion,  seeing  the 
standards  of  the  sacramental  host  borne  steadily 


192     FROM  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

onward  over  mountains,  across  rivers,  tlirougli 
difficult  and  perilous  places,  and  planted  amidst 
the  log  cabins  of  the  frontiersmen  and  the  wig- 
wams of  the  Indians  from  the  St.  Lawrence  to 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  could  have  taken  up  the 
shout  of  the  mediaeval  poet : 

"  The  royal  banners  forward  go, 
The  cross  shines  forth  with  mystic  glow." 

Presbyterianism  has  always  been  the  patron  and 
promoter  of  learning.  An  open  Bible,  an  enlight- 
ened intellect  and  an  unfettered  conscience  have 
ever  been  her  watchwords.  Whithersoever  she  has 
gone  she  has  borne  the  torch  of  learning  along 
with  her.  Her  goings  forth  have  been  attended 
by  an  illumination  like  to  that  which  attended 
the  steps  of  Milton's  Eaphael  in  Eden.  The 
pioneers  of  American  Presbyterianisni,  true  to 
the  traditions  of  the  past,  carried  the  lamp  of 
learnins;  with  them  into  the  wilderness.  Under 
the  bare  and  rude  rafters  of  log  cabins  they  held 
converse  with  the  mighty  spirits  of  Greece  and 
Rome,  and  within  sound  of  the  Indian  war-whoop 
and  within  sight  of  the  council-fires  of  savage 
tribes  they  laid  the  foundations  of  literary  insti- 
tutions whose  influence  has  had  a  wider  reach 
and  a  deeper  current  than  ever  belonged  to  the 
doctrines  of  the  porch  or  the  academy. 

The  log  college  of  Tennent  on  the  banks  of 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME.  193 

the  Neshaminy  first  gave  the  distinctive  stamp  to 
American  Presbyterianism,  and  that  of  Blair  at 
Fagg's  Manor  (Pa.)  was  scarcely  less  influential, 
and  shall  ever  have  a  secure  place  in  its  unique 
historic  niche  so  long  as  it  can  be  said,  "  Samuel 
Da  vies  was  educated  here  and  went  forth  into  the 
world  an  exponent  and  exemplar  of  his  Alma 
3£ater  r  while  that  of  Finley  at  Nottingham, 
Md.,  sent  forth  such  men  as  Dr.  Waddell,  the  im- 
mortal blind  preacher,  w4iose  eloquence  William 
Wirt  has  made  familiar  to  every  schoolboy. 

In  AVestern  Pennsylvania,  as  early  as  1782, 
Kev.  Thaddeus  Dod  opened  his  log  academy  on 
Ten-Mile  Creek ;  Rev.  Joseph  Smith,  at  Upper 
Buffalo,  appropriating  his  kitchen  for  the  purpose 
of  a  Latin  school,  gave  it  the  dignified  and  clas- 
sical title,  "  The  Study ;"  while  even  earlier  than 
this  Dr.  McMillan,  on  the  banks  of  the  Chartiers, 
laid  the  foundations  of  Jefferson  College. 

The  same  policy  was  pursued  in  North  Carolina. 
The  self-educated  Patillo  taught  a  classical  school 
at  Granville ;  Dr.  Hall  had  his  famous  "  Clio's 
Nursery  "  at  Snow  Creek,  and  his  "  Academy  of 
the  Sciences,"  with  its  philosophical  apparatus,  at 
his  own  house  ;  the  flaming  evangelist  McGready 
opened  a  school  at  his  house ;  Wallis  had  a  clas- 
sical school  at  New  Providence,  McCorkle  at  Salis- 
bury, and  McCaule  at  Centre.  Patillo  and  Hall  not 
only  taught,  but  wTote  text-books.     The  spirit  of 

17 


IW     FSOU  ADOPTION  FOUM  OF  00  VBRNMENT 

these  men  is  indicated  by  an  incident  in  the  life 
of  Patillo.     Once,  ni  his  absence  from  home,  his 
house   was   horned;   and   the   first  question 
meepg  h„  ..fe  was,  "31,  dear,  are  ,«,  Uoks 

Down  the  beautiful  valleys  of  tbeHolston  and 
Nort?f    ''r°  T";.'--^<''™ig'-tion  poured  fron. 
North  Caxohna,  Virginia,  Pennsylvania  and  New 
Jersey.     The  first  settled  nnnister  in  this  region 
was  Eev.  Samuel  Doak,  who  built  a  log  coire<.e 
wluch    m    1788    was    incorporated    as"  MarSn 
Academy,  the  first  literary  institution  established 
in    the    valley   of    the    Mississippi,   and   which 
afterward,  in  1795,  becan.e  Washington  College 
Subsequently   removing   to  Greene  county,  Mr' 
Doak  opened  his  "Tusculum,"  an  academy  to  pre- 
pare young  men  for  college.     This  institution  also 
developed  nito  a  college.     A  small  library  pro- 
cured for  Washington  College   in   Phiiadeljhia 
was  earned  to  Tennessee  in  sacks  on  pack-horses. 
In  five  yeai^^after  the  first  settlement  of  the  State 
by  Daniel  Boone  steps   were  taken   toward  the 
founding  of  a  seminary  of  learning  in  Kentucky 
The   originators   and  promoters  of  this  schenie 
were  Presbyterians,  and  the  school,  the  first  in 
Kentucky,  was  opened  in  the  house  of  Father 

Presbyterianism  is  an  Aaron's  rod  which  always 
buds  with  intellectual  as  well  as  with  spiritual 


TO  THE  PEESENT  TIME.  195 

life.  The  Graees  and  the  ^Muses,  in  chaste  and 
modest  fellowsliip  with  Christian  virtues,  dwelt 
in  the  Western  forests.  Beside  the  fires  on  the 
altars  of  pure  religion  burned  the  lamp  of  sound 
learning.  "The  church,  the  school-house  and 
the  college  grew  up  with  the  log  cabin,  and  the 
principles  of  religion  were  proclaimed  and  the 
classics  taught  where  glass  windows  were  un- 
known and  books  were  carried  on  pack-horses." 

Devotion  to  freedom,  profound  conviction  of 
duty,  staunch  and  unswerving  loyalty  to  truth, 
stern  adherence  to  principle,  catholic  charity,  an 
active  benevolence,  love  of  learning,  the  spirit  of 
missions  and  the  power  of  revival, — these  were 
the  vital  forces  of  early  American  Presbyterian- 
ism  ;  and  these  forces  had  as  the  theatre  of  their 
operation  the  republic  of  the  United  States,  with 
its  vast  and  unsolved  problems  and  its  untold  pos- 
sibilities of  wealth  and  jDOwer,  wdiilst  as  the  epoch 
of  their  development  these  forces  had  the  nine- 
teenth century,  with  its  teeming  enterprises,  its 
concentrating  energies,  its  momentous  conflicts 
and  issues. 

Having  thus  endeavored  to  set  before  you 
clearly,  in  its  distinctive  characteristics,  the  Pres- 
byterian Church  of  America  during  the  last 
decade  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  the  first 
decade  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  having 
endeavored  to  place  the  Church  fairly  abreast  of 


196     FROM  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

the  mighty  current  of  modern  history,  the  rest 
of  my  task  must  be  despatched  more  summarily. 
In  the  execution  of  it  I  shall  give  only  broad 
outlines  and  shall  deal  with  forces  rather  than 
with  facts. 

The  work  of  revival,  the  power  of  which  had 
been  felt  from  the  St.  Lawrence  to  the  Missis- 
sippi, had  evoked  the  spirit  of  missions,  and  the 
spirit  of  missions  had  enlarged  the  views  and 
broadened  the  sympathies  of  Christians  and  of 
churches,  and  in  this  way  different  denominations 
had  been  brought  together  in  friendly  co-opera- 
tion. In  the  year  1802  the  General  Assembly 
adopted  the  Plan  of  Union,  under  which  a  Pres- 
byterian church  might  have  a  Congregational 
pastor  or  a  Congregational  church  might  have  a 
Presbyterian  pastor,  these  pastors  retaining  their 
respective  ecclesiastical  relations.  The  motives, 
which  prompted  this  action  were  in  the  highest 
degree  laudable  and  honorable,  but  the  practical 
operation  of  the  plan  was  beset  with  difficulties, 
and  these  difficulties  soon  began  to  manifest  them- 
selves. Swift  currents  were  now  sweeping  the 
Church  out  into  untried  waters.  New  elements, 
new  forces  and  new  issues  entered  into  the  his- 
tory year  by  year.  The  incidents  of  the  drama 
thicken.  Events  hasten ;  the  tide  of  mingling 
peoples  rolls  westward ;  the  steps  of  divine  Prov- 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME.  197 

idence  will  not  tarry ;  States  in  the  South  and  in 
the  West  rise  as  by  magic;  along  new  lines  of 
trade  and  travel  cities  spring  up  in  a  night; 
vast  and  imj)ortant  mission-fields  are  rapidly 
opening,  and  the  Church  has  neither  the  men 
nor  the  means  with  which  to  occupy  these  fields. 

In  the  year  1806  the  late  Dr.  James  Hoge,  of 
Columbus,  Ohio,  was  sent  as  a  missionary  to  "  the 
State  of  Ohio  and  paets  adjacent. 

As  the  new  age,  with  its  tumultuous  and 
mingling  elements  and  its  pressing  demands 
on  Christian  activity,  hurried  on,  it  developed 
difference  of  views  and  of  policy  where  unanim- 
ity of  both  had  prevailed  before.  In  pushing 
forward  the  cause  of  evangelization  there  were 
two  antagonistic  theories  according  to  which  the 
work  was  conducted.  One  theory  multiplied 
voluntary  and  irresponsible  societies  in  different 
localities,  and  operated  from  various  centres  with- 
out unity  of  purpose  or  of  government.  Tlie 
other  theory  strove  to  unify  the  benevolent  work 
of  the  Church  and  to  bring  it  within  the  metes 
and  bounds  of  ecclesiastical  control.  In  the  slow 
but  steady  working  out  of  this  latter  theory  the 
committee  on  missions,  which  was  raised  by  the 
General  Assembly  in  1790,  became  a  stated  com- 
mittee, the  stated  committee  became  a  standing 
committee,  and  the  standing  committee  passed 
into  the  Board  of  Missions  in  the  year  1816. 

17  * 


198     FB03I  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

In  the  same  way  successive  efforts  in  behalf  of 
ministerial  education  resulted  at  last  in  the  Board 
of  Education  in  the  year  1819. 

Besides  these  antagonistic  views  and  policies 
in  respect  to  the  benevolent  work  of  the  Church, 
questions  arose  under  the  operation  of  the  Plan 
of  Union  which  touched  the  vital  principles  of 
Presbyterianisra.  There  was  no  dispute  as  to 
what  Presbyterianism  was,  but  as  to  how  flir  its 
fundamental  principles  might  be  ignored  or  sus- 
pended for  the  sake  of  expediency.  These  ques- 
tions and  the  differences  which  arose  out  of  them 
became  more  and  more  emphasized  each  succeed- 
ing year.  By  some  the  Plan  of  Union  was  put 
above  the  constitution  of  the  Church,  By  others 
the  Plan  of  Union  was  regarded  as  a  masterly  de- 
vice for  congregationalizing  the  Church,  or  else 
for  destroying  both  Presbyterianism  and  Congre- 
gationalism and  producing  a  hybrid  monstrosity 
of  ecclesiasticism  which  would  be  a  caricature  of 
both.  The  differences  were  deep,  striking  down 
to  the  roots  of  the  Presbyterian  system,  and  were 
consequently  irreconcilable. 

In  addition  to  the  differences  in  regard  to  policy 
and  polity,  there  were  deeper  doctrinal  controver- 
sies. The  cloud  which  contained  this  storm  came 
from  New  England.  New  measures  and  New 
Haven  theology  created  a  great  amount  of  dis- 
trust and    disturbance   throughout  the  Church. 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME.  199 

The  very  sincerity,  earnestness  and  honesty  of 
the  men  who  were  engaged  on  both  sides  of  the 
controversy  made  the  contest  all  the  more  deter- 
mined and  the  excitement  attending  it  all  the 
more  intense.  Each  succeeding  year,  with  its 
discussions,  conventions  and  trials  for  heresy, 
widened  the  lines  of  divergence  and  whetted 
the  points  of  antagonism.  AVith  much  of  heroic 
devotion  to  princij^le  as  well  as  with  much  of 
mingled  human  infirmity  and  error  on  both  sides, 
the  contest  w^axed  hotter  and  hotter,  until  it 
reached  its  culmination  in  the  exscinding  acts 
of  1837  and  the  division  of  1838. 

Of  late  years  it  has  become  quite  the  style  to 
speak  in  a  tone  of  deprecating  pity  of  these  ec- 
clesiastical battles  of  forty  years  ago,  as  though 
they  were  mere  quibbles  about  words  or  disputes 
about  the  tithing  of  the  mint  and  the  anise  and 
the  cummin,  and  to  quote  them  as  j)roofs  of  a 
very  low  state  of  piety  and  of  the  prevalence  of 
a  rabid  spirit  of  scholasticism  and  of  dead  ortho- 
doxy; but  it  becomes  us  to  beware  lest  we  fall 
into  the  condemnation  of  those  who,  "  measuring 
themselves  by  themselves  and  comparing  them- 
selves among  themselves,  are  not  wise."  Deep 
and  strong  convictions  of  truth  and  of  duty,  and 
a  firm  adherence  to  these  convictions  at  any  cost, 
can  never  be  a  just  cause  of  reproach  to  Chris- 
tian men.     For  such  convictions  believers  in  all 


200     FROM  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

ages  have  been  "tortured,  not  accepting  deliver- 
ance," and  have  counted  their  blood  as  cheap  as 
water  when  shed  in  such  a  cause.  They  "  con- 
tend earnestly  for  the  faith ''  because  that  faith 
is  infinitely  precious  to  them.  A  Church  or  a 
Christian  without  sharp  and  distinctive  beliefs 
is  a  body  without  a  s^^inal  column,  bones  or 
marrow.  If  ever  the  time  come  when  men 
shall  not  care  to  defend  what  they  hold  as 
Presbyterians  or  Methodists  or  Baptists  or  Con- 
gregationalists,  the  time  will  have  come  when 
men  will  not  care  to  defend  the  truth  of  the 
gospel  at  all.  If  to  be  a  Presbyterian  makes  a 
man  any  the  less  a  Christian  in  any  sense  or  in 
any  particular,  then  let  us  burn  our  Confession 
of  Faith  and  our  Book  of  Government,  let  us 
tear  down  and  tear  up  the  banner  which  was 
carried  by  our  forefathers  through  so  many  per- 
secutions. But  if  Presbyterianism  is  scriptural 
in  theory  and  holy  in  its  practical  results,  then 
let  us  never  be  afraid  or  ashamed  to  avow  it.  A 
Church  without  a  creed  is  to  one  which  has  a 
creed  as  the  hyssop  on  the  wall  is  to  the  cedar 
of  Lebanon  or  as  the  jelly-fish  is  to  the  Nemean 
lion.  The  danger  is  not  that  we  shall  hold  these 
doctrines  too  firmly  or  cherish  them  too  sacredly, 
but  that  through  remissness  and  indifference  we 
shall  let  sli^D  the  precious  trusts  which  have  come 
down  to  us  on  rivers  of  martvr  blood. 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME.  201 

It  is  a  significant  and  remarkable  fnct,  and  one 
which  deserves  especial  emphasis  at  our  hands, 
that  those  years  of  controversy  and  debate  which 
preceded  the  division  of  1837  were  years  of  spirit- 
nal  growth  and  prosperity  in  the  Church,  "  the 
Holy  Ghost  this  signifying "  that  the  doctrines 
of  the  gospel  are  the  wisdom  of  God  and  the 
power  of  God  unto  salvation  even  when  j^reached 
in  strife  and  debate.  Better  preached  thus  than 
not  to  be  preached  at  all.  We  are  not  justified  in 
passing  judgment  on  these  men  of  '37,  some  of 
whom  linger  amongst  us,  who,  "  firm  in  the  right 
as  God  gave  them  to  see  the  right,"  followed  their 
convictions  straight  to  the  issue  regardless  of  sac- 
rifices or  consequences. 

The  division  of  1838  w^as  followed  by  a  period 
of  tumult,  litigation  and  readjustment.  The 
ploughshare  ran  through  most  of  the  synods  and 
presbyteries,  and  through  many  of  the  churches 
even.  Certain  loose  elements  which  were  set 
afloat  by  these  riving  processes  oscillated  between 
the  two  bodies  for  some  time,  but  at  last  attached 
to  one  or  the  other  of  them,  or  else  drifted  away 
to  other  spheres  of  ecclesiastical  attraction  and 
affinity.  When  the  dust  and  smoke  of  the  con- 
flict were  dispelled,  the  view  revealed  two  Presby- 
terian churches  with  the  same  Confession  of  Faith 
and  the  same  Form  of  Government  and  the  same 
Book  of  Discijiline,  working  side  by  side  in  the 


202     FROM  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

same    field,  yet   having   differences   which  were 
qidte  characteristic  and  distinctive. 

The  Old  School  Church  was  to  a  remarkable 
degree  homogeneous  in  its  constituent  elements, 
and  was  distinguished  for  a  rigid  orthodoxy  and 
a  strict  ecclesiasticism.  The  New  School  Church, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  not  homogeneous  in  its 
constituent  elements,  and  was  distinguished  for  a 
liberal  construction  of  the  standards,  and  for  an 
ecclesiasticism  which  for  the  sake  of  the  voluntary 
and  co-operative  system  of  beneficence  put  in 
jeopardy  the  interests  of  a  just  and  necessary 
denominationalism.  The  Old  School  Church 
continued  in  its  orbit,  in  possession  of  its  titles, 
dignities  and  endowments,  while  the  New  School 
Church,  against  its  will,  was  flung  off  into  a  new 
and  untried  sphere.  The  Old  School  church  had 
a  well-defined  j)olicy,  and  went  right  on  in  its 
course,  with  scarcely  ajar  or  a  jostle  in  its  eccle- 
siastical operations.  The  New  School  party, 
stunned  by  the  sudden  and  summary  blow  of  ex- 
cision, without  a  legal  status  and  beyond  the  pale 
of  its  wonted  ecclesiastical  relations,  was  at  first 
without  a  fixed  policy ;  and  through  abounding 
magnanimity  refusing  to  disentangle  itself  from 
incongruous  alliances,  was  by  these  alliances 
seriously  distracted  and  weakened.  Its  generosity, 
magnanimity  and  charity  are  beyond  all  praise, 
but  unhappily  these  amiable  and  noble  qualities 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME.  203 

outran  the  less  dazzling  and  sterner  attributes  of 
wisdom,  prudence  and  a  just  conservatism.  The 
experiment  of  an  amalgamated  Presbyterianism, 
therefore,  was  made  in  propitious  circumstances, 
under  favorable  conditions  and  by  those  whose 
sentiments  and  sympathies  rendered  the  effort  a 
sincere  and  cordial  one ;  yet  the  experiment  failed, 
and  the  failure  has  gone  into  history.  There  is 
nothing  in  this  which  is  derogatory  to  the  party 
which  made  the  experiment,  but  it  is,  on  the  con- 
trary, in  the  highest  degree  honorable  to  it  that  in 
the  circumstances  the  experiment  was  made ;  yet 
the  failure  is  none  the  less  significant  and'  in- 
structive. 

The  changes  which  were  made  in  the  consti- 
tution by  the  New  School  Church  were  soon  dis- 
covered to  be  disastrous  to  the  interests  at  stake 
and  to  the  efficiency  of  ecclesiastical  operations, 
and  the  mistake  which  had  thus  been  made  was 
speedily  rectified  by  restoring  the  "  Book  "  to  its 
original  form  and  by  reinstating  it  as  the  con- 
stitutional law  of  the  Church  both  in  the  letter 
and  in  the  spirit  of  it.  In  the  violent  agitations 
and  amidst  the  swift  and  turbulent  currents 
which  succeeded  the  division  the  Church  had 
been  swept  somewhat  from  its  moorings,  but 
as  soon  as  the  storm  had  subsided  it  swunfir 
back  to  the  safe  harbor  and  the  strong  anchorage 
of  constitutional  Presbyterianism. 


204     FB03I  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

The  theory  of  co-operation  and  of  undenom- 
inationalism,  in  spite  of  the  most  unselfish  and 
liberal  efforts  in  its  behalf,  gradually  broke  down, 
and  the  pitiless  logic  of  facts  forced  the  Church 
to  adopt  a  policy  against  which  her  charity  and 
her  symjDathies  reluctated,  but  which  the  solemn 
calls  of  duty  and   the  urgent  exigences  of  the 
times  not  only  justified,  but  rendered  imperative. 
She  undertook  to  educate  her  own  ministry,  to 
create  and  disseminate  her  own  literature  and  to 
conduct   her  missions  in   her  own  fields  in  her 
own  way  ;  and  when  to  a  well-defined  task  she 
set  her  hand,  the  work  glowed  beneath  her  touch. 
A  new  energy  thrilled  along  every  fibre  of  her 
organic  life.     Full  of  hope  and  zeal  and  enthu- 
siasm, with  a  united  and  inflexible  purpose,  she 
entered  upon  a  new  era  in  her  history  which  was 
as  radiant  with  promise  as  the  roseate  sky  mant- 
ling with  the  blushes  of  the  morning.     She  had 
come  at  length  to  a  clear  conception  of  her  mis- 
sion.    She  saw  her  work  distinctly  and  emphat- 
ically outlined  in   a  field  which  suggested  and 
invited  boundless  effort ;   and  to  that  work  she 
went  with  heart  and  mind  and  soul  exulting  in 
the  free  play  of  her  untrammeled  individuality. 

The  Old  School,  at  the  time  of  the  division, 
had  a  wonderfully  homogeneous  constituency,  a 
clearly-defined  theology,  a  pure  Presbyterian 
form  of  government,  a  fixed  policy,  an  enthusi- 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME.  205 

astic  niianiinity  of  sentiment,  leaders  of  consum- 
mate ability,  the  prestige  which  accrued  from  its 
leo-allv-recoii'nized  status,  an  ecclesiastical  ma- 
chinery  ready  to  its  hand,  a  definite  work  to  do 
and  an  entire  singleness  of  purpose  in  the  prosecu- 
tion of  that  work.  The  Board  of  Missions  (domes- 
tic) and  the  Board  of  Education  had  already  been 
organized  and  in  operation  for  a  score  of  years. 
In  the  stormy  year  of  1837,  amidst  tlie  tumults 
of  excision  and  division,  the  Board  of  Foreign 
Missions  was  organized,  and  into  this  board  was 
at  once  mei-ged  the  Western  Foreign  Missionary 
Society,  which  had  been  formed  and  operated  by 
the  synod  of  Pittsburg  for  six  years  previous 
to  this  date ;  and  thus  "  the  wall  was  built  even 
in  troublous  times."  Nor  did  this  old  church, 
even  amidst  the  absorbing  interest  and  excite- 
ment of  such  a  crisis  as  that  of  1837,  forget  for 
so  much  as  an  hour  that  "  the  field  is  the  world." 
The  Board  of  Foreign  Missions,  which  was  then 
constituted,  has  continued  to  this  day  to  be  a 
source  of  steadily-increasing  power  and  blessing, 
and  on  its  records  are  the  names  of  as  heroic 
men  and  women  as  ever  planted  the  cross  among 
savage  men  or  amidst  "the  pestilence  that  walketh 
in  darkness,"  and  its  martyrology  is  as  glorious 
as  that  which  was  enacted  in  the  Coliseum  or  in 
the  imperial  gardens  of  Nero. 

With  a  full  recognition  of  the  power  of  the 

IS 


206     FROM  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

press  and  of  the  supreme  importance  of  a  sound 
theological  literature,  the  Board  of  Publication 
was  organized  in  the  year  1838.  Out  of  the 
work  of  Domestic  Missions  grew  the  Church 
Erection  Fund  of  the  New  School  Church  and 
the  Board  of  Church  Extension  of  the  Old 
School  Church,  both  of  which  were  merged  at 
the  reunion  into  the  Board  of  Church  Erection. 
Nor  has  the  Church  forgotten  her  worn-out  vet- 
erans and  their  widows  and  orphans,  and  her 
efforts  in  their  behalf  resulted  in  the  Board  of 
Ministerial  Belief.  The  benevolent  agencies  of 
the  Church  are  not  cunningly- devised  frame- 
works of  abstract  and  finely-spun  theories,  but 
each  one  of  them  has  arisen  out  of  the  actual 
necessities  of  the  work  and  the  urgent,  emphatic 
demands  of  the  times.  They  are  a  growth,  a 
development,  not  an  invention. 

In  both  branches  of  the  Church  during  the 
separation  the  subject  of  slavery  produced  earnest 
discussion  and  deep,  widespread  agitations.  In 
the  New  School  Church  the  deliverances  on  the 
subject  by  the  General  Assembly  became  more 
pronounced  from  year  to  year.  The  Northern 
portion  of  that  Cliurch  became  gradually  but 
surely  more  emphatic  in  its  anti-slavery  convic- 
tions and  utterances,  while  at  the  same  time  the 
Southern  portion,  through  a  variety  of  potent  and 
subtle  influences,  was  quietly  slipping  away  from 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME.  207 

the  testimonies  of  the  Church  against  slavery 
and  assuming  the  position  that  slave-hokling  was 
sanctioned  by  the  Bible  and  was  an  institution 
not  only  to  be  tolerated  but  defended.  Of  ne- 
cessity the  breach  between  the  parties  became 
wider  and  wider  each  succeeding  j^ear.  Their 
views  were  so  divergent  and  so  utterly  irreconcil- 
able that  there  was  no  hope  or  possibility  of  a 
compromise.  The  crisis  came  in  the  year  1857. 
The  Southern  synod  withdrew.  The  debates  pre- 
ceding the  schism  were  candid  and  fraternal,  and 
the  2^arties  separated  w^ithout  bitterness  and  with 
sincere  mutual  respect  and  love. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  political  horizon  grew 
black  with  angry  and  portentous  clouds,  and 
muttering  thunders  gathered  to  a  storm  in  which 
not  only  churches  went  asunder,  but  in  which 
States  which  were  knit  together  by  ties  of  brother- 
hood "  were  rent  w^ith  civil  feuds  and  drenched 
w^ith  fraternal  blood."  Amidst  the  trooping  furies 
of  an  awful  civil  war  the  Old  School  Church  was 
riven  asunder,  the  split  following  the  line  wdiich 
separated  the  loyal  States  from  those  which  were 
in  rebellion  against  the  Federal  government. 

At  this  point  a  word  is  necessary  in  regard  to 
the  attitude  and  the  teaching  of  the  Church  on 
the  subject  of  slavery.  The  testimony  of  the 
Church  on  this  matter  has  always  been  clear  and 


208     FROAI  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

explicit.  In  the  year  1787  the  synod  of  New 
York  and  Philadelphia  "  highly  approved  of  the 
general  principles  in  favor  of  universal  liberty 
that  prevail  in  America,  and  the  interest  which 
many  of  the  States  had  taken  in  promoting  the 
abolition  of  slavery,"  and  "  recommended  to  all 
their  people  to  use  the  most  prudent  measures, 
consistent  with  the  interest  and  the  state  of  civil 
society  in  the  counties  where  they  lived,  to  pro- 
cure eventually  the  final  abolition  of  slavery  in 
America."  This  action  was  reaffirmed  in  1793. 
In  the  year  1815  the  General  Assembly  "  declared 
their  cordial  approbation  of  those  principles  of 
civil  liberty  which  ai^pear  to  be  recognized  by  the 
federal  and  State  governments  in  these  United 
States,"  and  urged  the  presbyteries  under  their 
care  "  to  adopt  such  measures  as  will  secure  at  least 
to  the  rising  generation  of  slaves  within  the 
bounds  of  the  Church  a  religious  education,  that 
they  may  be  prepared  for  the  exercise  and  enjoy- 
ment of  liberty  when  God  in  his  providence  may 
open  a  door  for  their  emancipation,"  and  the  same 
Assembly  denounced  "  the  buying  and  selling  of 
slaves  by  way  of  traffic,  and  all  undue  severity  in 
the  management  of  them,  as  inconsistent  with  the 
spirit  of  the  gospel." 

The  immortal  paper  upon  the  subject  which 
was  adopted  by  the  General  Assembly  in  the  year 
1818    begins   with    these   ringing   words :    "  We 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME. 


209 


consider  tlie  voluntary  enslaving  of  one  portion 
of  the  human  race  by  another  as  a  gross  violation 
of  the  most  precious  and  sacred  rights  of  human 
nature,  as  utterly  inconsistent  with  the  law  of 
God  which  requires  us  to  love  our  neighbor  as 
oui-selves,  and  as  totally  irreconcilable  with  the 
spirit  and    principles   of  the   gospel   of  Christ, 
which   enjoins   that  'all   things   whatsoever   ye 
would  that  men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so 
to  them;'"  and  the  entire  paper  is  in  the  tone  and 
spirit  of  its  initial  sentence.     The  action  of  1845 
deals  with  the  single  and  specific  question  as  to 
whether  slave-holding  j^er  se  and  "  without  re- 
o-ard  to  circumstances  is  a  sin  and  a  bar  to  Chris- 
tian communion  ;"  and  that  action  did  not  in  any 
way  or  to  any  extent  nullify  or  invalidate  the  for- 
mer deliverances  of  the  Church  courts  on  the  sub- 
ject.    The  General  Assembly  of  1846  declared 
that  in  its  judgment  the  action  of  the  General 
Assembly  of  1845  was  not  intended  to  deny  or 
to  rescind  the  testimony  often  uttered  by  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  previous  to  that  date.     Upon  the 
deliverance  of  1818  the  Church  as  a  body  has 
always  stood.     To  have  abandoned  that  ground 
would  at  any  time  have  rent  the  Church  in  twain. 
Up  to  the  time  of  the    division    the   united 
Church  occupied  that  ground.    After  the  division 
in  1837,  the  utterances  of  the  New  School  Church 
on  the  subject  grew  clearer  and  sharper  every 


i»« 


210    FROM  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

year.     During   tlie   same  time   the   Old   School 
Churcli,  while  she  was  not  aggressive  on  the  sub- 
ject, but  for  the  sake  of  peace  and  charity  was 
conservative,  yet  stood    firmly  by  her  past  tes- 
timonies, so  that  even  during  the  civil  war  and 
after  the  abolition  of  slavery  she  had  not  to  change 
a  sentence  or  a  letter  in  her  record,  nor  to  adjust 
in  the  slightest  her  attitude  so  as  to  put  herself 
in  line  and  sympathy  with  the  moral  forces  of 
the  times.      While  the  General  Assembly  thus 
held  the  ground  of  1818,  it  must  nevertheless  be 
confessed  that  a  rapid  change  of  sentiment  was 
going  on  in  the  Southern  portion  of  the  Church, 
until  finally  the  bold  position  was  assumed  that 
slavery  as  an  institution  was  right  politically  and 
morally,  and  as  such  was  to   be  defended   and 
conserved,  but  the   Church  as  a  Church  never 
held  nor  sanctioned  such  views.     The  spirit  of 
both  the  Old  and  the  New  School  Churches  was 
to  bear  unequivocal  testimony  against  the  system 
of  slavery  as  an  institution,  and  yet  at  the  same 
time  to  exercise  the  largest  charity  toward  those 
who,  through  no  fault  of  their  own,  were  involved 
in  the  evils  of  that  system.     If,  therefore,  the 
Church  committed  an  error,  the  error  was  on  the 
side  of  charity ;    and  if  there  were  those  who 
proved  recreant  to  her  testimonies  and  who  abused 
the  "  charity  that  hopeth  all  things,"  the  fault 
was  theirs,  not  hers.     Whatever  may  have  been 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME.  211 

the  errors  of  individual  members  or  of  portions 
of  her  communion,  I  am  bold  and  proud  to  say- 
that  there  is  nothing  in  her  records  on  the  sub- 
ject of  slavery  of  which  she  need  be  ashamed  or 
for  which  she  need  offer  an  apology. 

Amidst  the  fearful  throes  of  rebellion  both 
Churches  were  in  full  sympathy  with  the  gov- 
ernment in  its  efforts  to  restore  order  and  to  pre- 
serve the  integrity  of  the  nation,  making  their 
voices  heard  and  their  influence  felt  in  favor 
of  supporting  the  "  powers  that  be  as  ordained 
of  God,"  and  both  Churches  rejoiced  and  sang 
hallelujahs  when,  in  the  providence  of  God, 
slavery,  the  cause  of  the  rebellion,  was  utterly 
overthrown  and  ground  to  j^owder.  Neither,  in 
their  ardent  loyalty  to  their  country,  did  they^ 
forget  their  allegiance  to  their  Lord,  nor  were 
they  even  in  these  perilous  times  derelict  in 
carrying  forward  the  standard  of  the  cross. 

In  the  suspense  and  danger  and  agony  which 
attended  the  ravages  of  war.  Christians  of  all 
denominations  were  drawn  closer  to  each  other. 
Great  union  associations,  such  as  the  Christian 
Commission,  threw  different  Churches  into  con- 
tact and  sympathy.  This  was  specially  the  case 
with  the  Old  and  New  School  Presbyterian 
Churches.  In  the  furnace  of  affliction  their 
hearts  were  fused  and  mingled.     They  began  to 


212     FR OM  A D OPTION  FORM  OF  GO  VERNMENT 

look  each  other  in  the  f^ice,  to  take  each  other 
by  tlie  hand,  and  in  doing  so  they  found  that 
their  hands  were  warmed  by  the  same  Presbyte- 
rian blood,  and  tliat  their  pulses  beat  to  the  same 
Christian  hopes  and  purposes.  They  found  that 
they  had  imperceptibly  come  together,  that  they 
were  standing  on  common  ground,  that  God  had 
been  leading  them  by  a  way  which  they  knew 
not. 

Each  Church  in  its  own  sphere  and  in  its  own 
way  had  been  working  out  important  problems 
under  the  guidance  of  divine  Providence.  In 
its  own  sphere  and  according  to  the  laws  of  its 
inner  life  the  New  School  Church  had  freed 
itself  from  alien  elements  and  entangling  alli- 
ances, and  had  become  a  homogeneous  Presby- 
terian body  both  in  doctrine  and  government. 
The  Old  School  Church,  straining  her  conserv- 
atism to  the  utmost  tension,  hoped  and  prayed 
that  the  dark  and  perplexing  problem  of  slavery 
might  be  solved  in  peace  and  charity  and  with- 
out the  stern  arbitrament  of  the  sword.  But 
God  willed  otherwise.  The  fetters  of  the  slave 
must  be  dissolved  in  blood.  Standing  bravely 
by  her  testimonies  against  slavery  and  bearing 
her  witness  against  treason  and  rebellion,  the 
Old  School  Church  calmly  awaited  the  decisive 
events  of  Providence;  and  when  the  schism  of 
the  Southern  Church  came,  taking  from  out  her 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME.  213 

pale  the  slavery  issue,  she  felt  herself  relieved 
of  a  weight  which  had  grievously  beset  her  for 
years. 

Thus  God  in  his  wise  and  mysterious  provi- 
dence had  settled  the  issues  between  the  two 
Churches.  All  that  was  left  was  for  them  to 
acknowledge  and  accept  what  God  had  done. 
The  union  of  the  two  bodies  was  consummated 
on  November  12,  1869,  in  the  city  of  Pitts- 
burg, Pa.,  and  the  two  Churches  became  organ- 
ically one  on  the  basis  of  the  standards,  pure  and 
simple,  and  under  the  title  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church  in  the  United  States  of  America,  form- 
ing, as  we  trust,  a  true  Church  of  Christ,  whose 
uplifted  banners  shall  become  a  rallying-point 
for  all  Presbyterians  on  the  continent,  where 
they  may  meet  and  settle  all  differences  in  a  way 
which  will  be  honorable  to  all  parties,  where  the 
scattered  Presbyterian  tribes  may  flow  together  as 
the  tribes  of  old  Israel  poured  to  Zion,  and  shall 
become  one,  and  shall  be  to  all  the  world  the 
best  representative  of  a  true  unity  which  is  not 
formed  by  external  appliances,  as  though  bound 
by  hoops  of  steel,  but  a  unity  which  is  developed 
and  strengthened  by  a  conscious  and  intelligent 
oneness  of  intellectual  belief  and  spiritual  life — 
one  not  as  a  wired  skeleton  is  one,  but  as  a  liv- 
ing man  is  one ;  a  broad  Church  not  in  the  sense 
of   being  latitudinarian,  but  broad  in  Christian 


214    FR03I  ADOPTION  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 

sympatliy  and  in  the  worldwide  scope  of  Chris- 
tian effort. 

Since  the  reunion  the  progress  of  the  Church 
has  been  steady,  harmonious  and  rapid.  With 
past  aUenations,  feuds  and  bitternesses  buried 
utterly  out  of  sight  and  out  of  hearing,  united, 
hopeful  and  "  strong  in  the  Lord,"  bound  by 
indissoluble  ties  of  brotherhood  and  fellowship 
to  those  of  our  own  household  of  faith,  and  with 
ardent  and  ample  charity  for  all  others,  we  stand 
on  the  threshold  of  the  new  century,  and  with 
devout  thanksgiving  to  God  for  the  past  and  for 
the  present  we  hail  and  welcome  the  great  future. 

Such  is  the  past.  Its  perils,  its  toils,  its  jour- 
neyings,  its  disasters,  its  achievements,  its  con- 
flicts, its  discouragements,  its  declensions,  its  re- 
vivals, its  mighty  sermons,  its  high  debates,  its 
struggles,  its  privations,  its  sacrifices,  its  rewards, 
its  failures,  its  successes,  its  hopes,  its  disappoint- 
ments, its  divisions,  its  reunions,  its  unheralded 
and  unrequited  labors, — have  all  gone  into  their 
place,  and  have  performed  their  part  in  fulfilling 
the  purpose  of  God  toward  this  land  and  the 
world.  They  form  a  picture  of  surpassing  in- 
terest— a  picture  strong  in  blended  light  and 
shadow,  but  having  withal  much  more  of  light 
than  of  shadow.  We  have  good  reason  to  be 
proud   of   our   Presbyterian  ancestry,   for  what 


TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME.  215 

they  were,  for  what  tliey  achieved  and  for  what 
they  represented.  AVe  have  a  glorious  herakb-y, 
but  we  must  not  rest  in  these. 

The  great  Roman  satirist  lashes  with  whips  of 
scorpions  the  degenerate  sons  of  the  Curii  and 
the  Lepidi,  who  with  dice  and  wine  and  soft 
voluptuousness  melted  away  their  dissolute  lives 
in  the  statued  halls  of  illustrious  ancestors,  where 
every  tablet  groaned  with  a  wealth  of  genealog- 
ical lore  and  every  wreath  and  chaj^let  was  red- 
olent with  glorious  memories.  Let  us  be  care- 
ful that  we  incur  not  such  satire.  We  have  been 
sitting  beneath  our  genealogical  tree  and  rejoi- 
cing in  its  staunch  branches  and  in  its  capacious 
shade.  We  have  been  gathering  up  the  artic- 
ulate lessons  and  the  solemn,  inspiring  voices  of 
the  century  that  is  gone.  Let  these  lessons  and 
voices  only  quicken  us  to  read  aright  the  signs 
of  the  times,  and  to  hear  and  to  interpret  rightly 
the  voice  of  God  as  it  comes  to  us  in  his  word 
and  his  providence,  that  through  watching  and 
prayer,  through  faithfulness  and  self-sacrifice,  the 
present  may  not  be  a  lie  and  a  slander  on  the 
past,  but  tliat  it  may  be  a  consistent  opening  and 
preparation  for  a  brighter  and  grander  future. 


THE  PRESENT  CONDITION, 

PROSPECTS,  BENEFICENT  WORK,  NEEDS  AND  OBLIGATIONS 

OF  THE 

PRESBVTERIAN  CHURCH  IN  THE  IMTED  STATES  OF  AMERICA. 


BY   THE 

Rev.  EDWARD  P.  HUMPHREY,  D.D.,  LL.D., 

PASTOR  OF  THE  COLLEGE  STREET  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH,  LOUISVILLE,  KY. 


19 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

The  Evangelical  Character  of  the  Presbyterian  Church. — From 
the  Beginning  a  Missionary  Society. — A  Witness  Bearer. — 
The  Form  and  Substance  of  its  Testimony. — It  takes  the  Creed 
Form. — Covers  the  Field  of  Christian  Doctrine. — The  Holy 
Scriptures  the  Rule  of  Faith. — History  of  the  Westminster 
Standards. — The  Symbols  Unchanged, — Adoption  of  the  Con- 
fession not  a  Condition  of  Church-Membership. — Definitions 
that  are  not  Integral  Parts  of  the  System. — Form  of  Govern- 
ment, Discipline  and  Worship. — Difficulties  Met, — Prospects. 
— Dangers  and  Hindrances  to  be  Overcome. — Beneficent  Work 
of  the  Church. — Needs  and  Obligations. — Abiding  Strength 
in  Christ 219-250 


THE 


PRESENT   CONDITION,    PROSPECTS, 

BENEFICENT   WORK,  NEEDS 

AND   OBLIGATIONS 


PRESBYTERIAN    CHURCB. 


IN  our  act  of  commemoration  we  are  now 
brought  to  an  inquiry  into  the  present  condi- 
tion, prospects,  beneficent  work,  needs  and  obli- 
gations of  the  Presbyterian  Church.  In  tlie 
prosecution  of  this  inquiry  it  will  be  convenient 
to  give  the  largest  place  to  the  present  condition 
of  the  Church.  From  that  the  transition  will  be 
easy  to  the  other  topics. 

I.  The  strictly  evangelical  character  of  the 
Church  is  the  most  obvious  sign  of  its  present 
condition.  Our  Confession  and  Catechisms  ex- 
j^ress  gospel  truths  in  the  plainest  terms.  The 
Church  is  evangelical  in  its  accepted  doctrine 
not  only,  but  in  its  aims  and  spirit  as  well.  No 
ministry  in  Christendom  is  more  thorough  and 
urgent  than  ours  in  expounding  the  plan  of  sal- 


219 


220  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH: 

vation.  No  body  of  believers  is  more  importu- 
nate in  prayer  for  revivals  of  religion,  and  none 
labors  more  diligently  to  secure  the  best  fruits  of 
revivals  in  the  life  of  God's  people  and  the  con- 
version of  sinners. 

Our  evangelizing  has  continually  widened  the 
sphere  of  its  activity.  From  the  beginning  this 
Church  has  been  a  missionary  society.  In  the 
year  1707  our  first  presbytery,  then  in  the  second 
year  of  its  existence,  ordered  its  ministers  "  to 
supply  neighboring  destitute  places."  In  1756 
the  synod  of  New  York  established  missions 
among  the  Indians.  The  twelfth  General  As- 
sembly, met  in  the  year  1800,  marked  out  for 
the  Church  its  permanent  plans  for  the  spread 
of  the  gospel.  That  assembly,  to  use  its  own 
language,  "agreed  that  the  following  objects 
deserve  consideration  :"  first,  "  the  gospelizing  " 
of  the  Indians ;  second,  "  the  instruction  of 
the  negroes,  the  poor  and  those  who  are  des- 
titute of  the  means  of  grace  in  various  parts 
of  this  extensive  country ;"  third,  the  distribu- 
tion of  the  Bible  and  religious  books;  fourth, 
the  support  of  candidates  for  the  ministry ;  fifth, 
the  theological  instruction  of  the  candidates  by 
"  professors  of  theology ;"  these  professors  to  be 
provided  with  "  a  suitable  library  "  and  "  to  re- 
ceive a  small  salary."  Perhaps  the  brethren 
who  were  met  in  that  assembly  seventy-six  years 


ITS.  niESKST  COyLJTlOX.  221 

82:0  built  better  than  tliev  knew,  but  tlie  remark- 
able  fact  is  that  we  can  distinctly  trace  in  that 
minute  the  foundation  of  our  present  Boards  of 
Foreign  Missions,  Home  Missions,  Publication 
and  Education,  and  of  our  theological  seminaries. 
And  another  fact  is  not  less  noteworthy :  the 
Church,  after  having  multiplied  its  boards  and 
committees  beyond  the  number  of  four,  proposed 
in  1800,  is  now  inquiring  whether  it  would  not 
be  wise  to  return  to  that  original  i:>lan.  Nor 
have  we,  in  the  organization  of  our  theological 
seminaries,  exceeded  unreasonably  the  rule  of  a 
"  suitable  library  "  and  "  a  small  salary  "  for  the 
professors. 

These  institutions  w^ere  intended  to  be,  and  now 
are,  simply  agencies  and  organs  of  evangelism. 
We  close  this  period  w'itli  all  in  complete  w^ork- 
ing  order,  every  one  of  them  controlled  by  the 
authority  of  the  Church,  invigorated  by  its  life, 
directed  always  and  altogether  and  unalterably 
to  this  one  end,  the  "  gospelizing  "  of  the  world. 
Whatever  enters  into  the  idea  of  an  evangeliz- 
ing Church  plainly  appears  in  our  present  con- 
dition. 

This  Church  is  moreover  a  witness-bearer.  If 
it  be  allowable  to  reduce  the  highest  offices  of  the 
gospel  Church  to  the  number  of  two  or  three  only, 
one  of  them  would  be  its  office  as  a  witness  to  the 
truth.     Our  Lord  said  to  Pilate,  "  For  this  cause 

19  » 


222  THE   PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH: 

was  I  born,  and  for  this  cause  came  I  into  the 
world,  that  I  might  bear  witness  to  the  truth." 
He  required  his  disciples  to  be  witnesses  unto  him 
unto  the  uttermost  j)arts  of  the  earth.  On  the 
day  of  Pentecost  and  afterward  they  declared 
that  Christ  had  risen  from  the  dead,  wliereof, 
they  added,  "  we  all  are  witnesses."  The  holy 
men  and  women  who  laid  down  their  lives  for 
Christ's  sake  and  the  gospel's  are  called  {iapzups:: 
{martyres),  the  martyr  being  simply  a  witness 
who  uttered  his  testimony  amidst  the  torments  of 
a  violent  death.  In  the  awful  vision  of  the  fifth 
seal,  John  saw  under  the  altar  the  souls,  and 
heard  the  loud  cry,  of  them  that  were  slain  for 
the  word  of  God  and  the  testimony  which  they 
held.  Now,  this  Church  is  not  only  an  evangel- 
izing but  a  witnessing  brotherhood. 

Let  us  then  look  into  the  form  and  substance 
of  our  testimony. 

First,  it  takes  on  the  creed  form.  Our  system 
of  doctrine  is  set  forth  in  a  Confession  of  Faitli 
and  in  two  separate  Catechisms.  Every  part  of 
these  documents  having  been  reduced  to  writing 
and  printed,  nothing  is  left  to  be  settled  by  any 
gloss  or  tradition  written  or  unwritten,  and  noth- 
ing is  to  be  received  as  of  ecclesiastical  authority, 
neither  explaiiation  nor  caveat,  except  it  be  found 
in  the  text. 

Further,  this  testimony  covers  the  whole  field 


ITS  PRESENT  CONDITION.  223 

of  Christian  doctrine.  The  Confession  is  drawn 
out  into  thirty-three  chapters,  subdivided  into 
about  one  hundred  and  seventy  sections.  The 
Larger  Catechism  contains  extended  answers  to  one 
hundred  and  ninety-six  questions.  The  Sliorter 
Catechism,  though  striving  after  brevity,  is  not  con- 
tent until  it  has  proposed  one  hundred  and  seven 
definitions.  It  would  be  difficult  for  an  inquirer, 
even  the  most  thorough  and  searching,  to  ask  a 
fair  question  in  Christian  doctrine  which  is  not 
fairly  met  in  these  formularies. 

In  regard  to  the  system  of  doctrine  set  out  in 
our  standards,  w'e  may  adopt  a  well-known  clas- 
sification, suggested,  perhaps,  by  Dr.  Hodge. 
[Princeton  Revieio,  1858,  p.  689.) 

We  begin  with  the  body  of  truth  which  we 
hold  in  common  with  all  the  great  historical 
Churches  bearing  the  Christian  name,  including 
the  Greek  and  Koman  communions.  With  them 
we  testify  to  the  doctrines  of  the  Holy  Trinity, 
of  the  person  of  Christ,  and  to  some  of  the  vital 
points  in  the  mediatorial  work  of  the  Son  of  God. 
Next,  bearing  with  us  these  testimonies,  we  leave 
the  communions  of  the  Greek  and  Koman 
Churches,  and  pass  into  the  company  of  the 
evangelical  Protestants,  whether  they  be  Luther- 
ans or  Arminians  or  German  Reformed.  We 
unite  with  them  in  constantly  maintaining  the 
truths  which  we  must  know  in  order  to  be  saved 


224  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH: 

— truths  broader  than  the  borders  of  any  one 
denomination,  truths  which  stand  the  okl  test  of 
catholicity,  being  received  everywhere  and  al- 
ways and  by  all. 

Bearing  with  us  these  sacred  treasures,  w^e  pass 
over  into  a  narrower  fellowship,  even  unto  the 
believers  who  accept  the  Calvinistic  theology. 
This  form  of  doctrine  is  held  within  compass  of 
the  five  points,  and  they  project  so  sharjDly 
from  our  standards  that  nobody  can  doubt  their 
presence.  They  are  the  distinctive  peculiarities 
of  our  written  testimony. 

With  this  ao'rees  the  constant  witness-bearins: 
of  the  living  Church.  This  system  of  doctrine 
is  dili2;entlv  tauo-ht  in  our  families  and  Sabbath- 
schools  and  pulpits.  It  is  the  outstanding  sura 
and  substance  of  our  most  approved  treatises  on 
theology.  Very  few  men  come  into  the  ministry 
except  through  the  lecture-rooms  of  our  theolog- 
ical seminaries ;  and  in  every  one  of  them  the 
teachers  have  solemnly  adopted,  as  the  confession 
of  their  personal  faith,  this  system  of  doctrine. 
We  require  every  man  who  bears  office  in  the 
Church  to  receive  and  adopt  it  as  his  own  by  a 
public  subscription.  No  man  can  become  a  min- 
ister or  ruling  elder  or  deacon,  nor  can  he  be 
admitted  to  a  seat  in  the  church  court,  in  any 
other  way ;  and  every  man  is  subject  to  be  de- 
prived of  office  so  soon  as  he  renounces  this  be- 


ITS  PRESENT  CONDITION.  225 

lief.  It  may  be  coiifiJently  asserted  that  the  tes- 
tinioiiy  of  the  living  Church  is  at  one  with  the 
testimony  of  the  written  formularies. 

And  to  make  all  things  sure,  the  doctrinal 
matter  printed  in  the  symbolical  books  and 
jireaehed  and  taught  by  the  living  Church  takes 
a  double  form — the  form  at  once  of  a  testimony 
and  a  protest.  Standing  in  certain  vital  doctrines 
with  the  Greek  and  Roman  Churches,  we  protest 
against  Atheism  and  Pantheism  and  Materialism, 
with  their  swarming  and  pestilent  heresies.  With 
all  our  Protestant  brethren  w^e  protest  against 
Romanism  and  Rationalism ;  and  with  the  Re- 
formed Churches  we  remonstrate  with  the  "  Re- 
monstrants." Our  doctrinal  position  is  first  di- 
dactic, then  polemic,  very  faintly  irenic.  Calvin- 
ism is  the  distinctive  peculiarity  of  our  system. 
If  that  w^ere  eliminated  or  suppressed  or  aban- 
doned, either  in  the  written  standards  or  in  the 
inward  convictions  of  the  people,  this  Church 
w^ould  have  no  right  to  an  existence  on  earth. 
In  that  event  it  would  be  a  schism,  not  a  necessity, 
in  the  kingdom.  Over  and  above  what  truths 
are  well  set  forth  by  other  communions,  our 
Church,  Calvinism  being  eliminated  from  the 
creed,  would  represent  nothing  imperial  either 
in  divine  revelation  or  in  the  forms  of  human 
thought. 

Let  it  not  be  thought,  however,  that  the  Con- 


226  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH: 

fession  is  our  rule  of  faith.  Neither  is  it  the 
judge  by  which  controversies  are  to  be  deter- 
mined, nor  the  infallible  interpreter  of  God's 
written  word.  The  rule  of  faith  is  the  Holy 
Scripture  alone.  The  supreme  judge  of  contro- 
versies, in  whose  sentence  we  are  to  rest,  can  be 
no  other  than  the  Holy  Spirit  speaking  in  the 
Scriptures;  and  the  inMlible  interpreter  of  Scrip- 
ture is  the  Scripture  itseJf.  We  acknowledge 
always  the  supreme  authority  of  the  written 
word.  That  word  is  the  touchstone  of  all  that 
we  preach  and  all  that  we  print,  the  rule  by 
which  we  judge  our  catechisms  and  confessions, 
and  with  which  we  require  our  prayers  and 
hymns,  our  sermons  and  treatises  in  theology,  to 
be  conformed.  Our  creed  is  simply  a  human 
covenant  wherein  we  declare  that,  to  the  best 
of  our  knowledge,  the  doctrinal  matter  therein 
contained  is  the  system  set  forth  in  the  rule  of 
faith,  and  that  the  language  is  sufficient  in 
which  the  doctrine  is  expressed.  It  will  easily 
be  admitted  that  the  compilers  of  the  creed  may 
have  erred  in  some  things  through  the  frailty 
inseparable  from  humanity ;  but  we  profess  and 
say  that  we  are  not  able  to  detect  the  possible 
error. 

The  full  assurance  with  which  we  rest  upon 
our  standards  is  strengthened  by  the  known  pro- 
cesses of  their  formation.     The  history  of  the 


ITS  PRESENT  CONDITION.  227 

Westminster    books  is  the  history  of  theology, 
and  theology  is  the  growth  of  ages.     Many  cen- 
turies   following   the    ministry    of    the    apostles 
were  required  in  order  to  gather  from  the  Scrip- 
tures the  true  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  and  the 
person  of  Christ,  and  to  select  the  words  and  to 
frame  the  definitions  which  should  express  the 
mind  of  the  Spirit.     After  that  was  done,  the 
truths  concerning  man  and  the  way  of  salvation 
were  slowly  and  painfully  ascertained.     In  the 
period  of  the  Reformation  the  Protestant  Churches 
combined  all  these  separate  truths  into  a  multi- 
tude of  creed-forms.      But  they  were  tentative 
only,  not  final.     At  last  the  Westminster  Assem- 
bly, profiting  by  the  labors  of  those  that  had 
gone  before,  gave  to  the  Church  the  latest  and 
most  complete  confession  of  its  faith.     This  doc- 
ument  not   only    summed    up    all   the    existing 
knowledge  of  God's  word,  but  it  was  the  con- 
summate product  of  the  outpouring  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  the    Protestant  Reformation,  the   second 
Pentecost  of  the  Gentiles,  and  up  to  our  own  day 
the  last  of  all.     We  judge  that  if  the  prophets 
and  teachers  at  A.ntioch  at  the  end  of  the  first 
century  had  read  the  text  of  Scripture  aright, 
they  would  have  done  the  work  that  was  reserved 
for  the  divines  at  Westminster  in  the  middle  of 
the  seventeenth  century.     Even  so  if  Ptolemy 
had  been  able  to  follow  the  paths  of  the  planets, 


228  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH: 

rightly  dividing  between  their  true  and  their  ap- 
parent motions,  he  woukl  have  set  forth  the  as- 
tronomy of  to-day.  The  ordinances  of  the  hea- 
vens are  not  more  unchangeable  than  the  word 
of  God.  The  Bible,  no  less  than  the  heavens, 
reveals  the  thoughts  of  God.  Both  Avaited  for 
their  interpreters.  Tiie  interpreters  came  at  last, 
and  a  true  astronomy  and  a  true  theology  stood 
revealed. 

In  the  formation  of  these  formularies,  first  of 
all  the  Holy  Scripture  was  received  as  undoubt- 
edly a  supernatural  revelation,  both  in  the  sub- 
stance and  in  the  written  record  thereof — an  in- 
fallible record  of  an  infallible  revelation.  The 
truths  contained  in  the  record  were  gathered, 
one  by  one,  out  of  the  obvious  and  historical 
sense  of  the  inspired  text.  Next,  the  truths  so 
ascertained  were  embodied  in  language  chosen 
by  the  living  Church  to  express  its  own  best  un- 
derstanding of  the  written  word.  The  most  im- 
portant words  were  weighed,  word  by  word  ;  one 
taken,  another  left.  Many  of  them  had  been 
coined  in  the  heat  of  early  controversies  with 
unbelievers,  and  are  current  through  every  prov- 
ince of  Christ's  kingdom  on  earth.  Of  these, 
the  terms  used  in  the  Confession  to  describe  the 
person  of  Christ  are  fine  examples.  Extraordi- 
nary precision  was  given  to  its  clauses  and  terms. 
Many  words  were  keenl}"  set  to  detect  or  to  defy 


ITS  PRESENT  CONDITION.  229 

latent  error.  Of  these  tlie  phrase  "elect  in- 
fants" may  serve  as  an  example.  Further  still, 
these  definitions  were  pursued  to  their  unavoid- 
able conclusions,  and  the  conclusions  were  tried 
by  the  word  of  God.  Then,  again,  they  were  laid 
side  by  side  for  the  detection  of  incompatibilities, 
if  any  lurked  among  them.  To  what  extent 
they  appeared  to  contradict  or  modify  one  another 
was  carefully  considered.  Finally,  the  state- 
ments so  wrought  out  one  by  one,  tested  by  the 
written  word  one  by  one,  compared  every  one 
with  every  other  one,  were  combined  into  coher- 
ent and  logical  formularies.  In  all  their  labors 
the  compilers  gave  themselves  continually  to 
prayer  for  the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
And  if  the  history  and  traditions  which  have 
come  down  to  us  of  many  remarkable  answers  to 
prayer  may  be  accepted,  they  received  special 
divine  illumination  in  some  of  their  most  im- 
portant conferences, 

These  documents  have  been  in  the  hands  of 
Christian  scholars,  and  of  the  skeptical  critics 
and  philosophers  as  well,  unto  this  day.  They 
have  passed  under  the  scrutiny  of  men  skilled 
in  the  interpretation  of  the  Scriptures ;  linguists 
most  facile  in  the  use  of  verbal  signs,  keen  in 
the  detection  of  fallacies  and  contradictions ; 
scientific  observei's  able  to  grasp  and  weigh  truth 
in  the  system  of  doctrine.     They  have  endured 

20 


230  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH: 

every  ordeal  proposed  by  doubters  and  debaters. 
They  have  encountered  the  merciless  hostility 
which  time  and  talents  wage  upon  every  hu- 
man composition,  and  they  have  held  their  own 
more  than  two  hundred  years.  Never  before 
was  the  number  of  their  disciples  so  great  as 
it  is  in  our  own  time ;  and  believers  in  them  are 
multiplied  daily. 

Since  the  formation  of  the  General  Assembly 
in  1789,  these  symbols  have  been  preserved  un- 
changed. They  have  suffered  no  loss  in  the 
emergencies  of  our  church-life.  In  the  memor- 
able division  of  1837  both  parties  avowed  their 
loyalty  to  our  common  standards.  Through  the 
thirty-three  years  which  followed,  both  branches 
of  the  Church  preserved  these  standards  in  the 
ipsissimis  verbis  thereof.  At  the  reunion  both 
branches  agreed  to  give  no  sanction  to  the  "  va- 
rious modes  of  viewing,  stating,  explaining  and 
illustrating  the  doctrines  of  the  Confession,"  and 
the  Church  bound  itself  anew  to  the  standards, 
"  pure  and  simple."  We  are  entitled  to  say  that 
there  is  in  the  reunited  Church  an  extraordinary 
unanimity  in  upholding  our  system  of  doctrine. 
The  Church  which  now  is  commits  to  the  Church 
of  the  future  its  ancient  covenanted  creed  in  its 
original  integrity,  with  the  judgment,  well  nigh 
unanimous,  that  it  ought  not  to  be  abandoned  or 
revised,  or  even  reconsidered. 


ITS  PEESENT  COyBlTlON.  231 

It  should  be  distinctly  borue  in  mind  that  this 
Church  does  not  make  the  adoption  of  the  Con- 
fession of  Faith  a  condition  of  church  member- 
ship. It  is  imposed  only  on  those  who  are  or- 
dained to  bear  office  in  the  Church,  according  to 
the  plain  distinction  between  the  communion  of 
saints  and  the  position  of  the  teacher  and  ruler. 

Still  further,  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that 
over  and  above  "the  system  of  doctrine,"  strictly 
so  called,  our  standards  contain  certain  definitions 
which  are  not  integral  parts  of  that  system.  In 
our  ordination  vows  as  office-bearers  we  do  not 
make  ourselves  responsible  for  these  outside  de- 
liverances. Hugh  Miller  expressed  to  Dr.  Cand- 
lish  the  opinion  that  "  the  Confessions  and  Cate- 
chisms of  the  Westminster  divines,  in  treating 
of  the  subject  of  the  creation,  use  language  which 
cannot  in  any  way  be  harmonized  with  the  teach- 
ings of  science."  He  then  pointed  out,  in  con- 
trast, the  narrative  of  the  creation  in  the  book  of 
Genesis,  the  inspired  text  of  which  is  fairly  sus- 
ceptible of  an  interpretation  consistent  with  the 
geological  discoveries.  The  definitions  of  our 
standards  on  this  subject,  whether  they  be  true 
or  erroneous,  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  "  sys- 
tem of  doctrine  "  to  which  we  subscribe.  In  like 
manner,  we  may  not  be  able  to  adopt,  as  of  clear 
scriptural  warrant,  every  clause  in  the  chapters 
of  the  Confession  "of  the  civil  magistrate"  and 


232  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH: 

"of  marriage  and  divorce."  We  do  not  question 
any  point  in  the  Calvinistic  theology  if  we  doubt 
whether  the  inspired  text  of  Paul  to  Timothy 
respecting  "that  man  of  sin,  that  son  of  per- 
dition," is  rightly  interpreted  when  applied  to 
the  pope  of  Kome.  None  of  these  propositions 
are  parts  of  our  system  of  doctrine.  They  are 
not  imposed  upon  our  consciences  in  the  act  of 
ordination.  If  it  be  said  that  this  rule  of  sub- 
scription opens  the  door  to  the  rejection  of  essen- 
tial truth,  the  answer  is  that  it  belongs  to  the 
living  Church,  through  its  tribunals,  to  determine 
for  itself,  and  for  us  all,  what  definitions  are  in- 
tegral parts  of  the  system  of  doctrine ;  and  that 
determination  is  final  and  binding  on  everybody. 
Another  prominent  feature  in  the  condition  of 
this  Church  is  to  be  recognized  in  its  well-tried 
and  thoroughly  settled  way  of  government,  dis- 
cipline and  worship.  That  our  Church  polity 
carries  with  it  the  warrant  of  Scripture  ought  not 
to  be  doubted.  The  Westminster  Assembly  be- 
gan its  labors  with  these  propositions :  "  Christ 
hath  appointed  a  definite  form  of  government  for 
his  Church,  and  has  not  left  it  to  the  wisdom  and 
caprice  of  men ;"  and  "  the  doctrine,  worsliip  and 
government  of  the  house  of  God  are  to  be  taken 
from  God's  word  alone."  The  divines,  having 
ascertained  that  the  pattern  of  church  order  is 
shown  in  the  Scrij^tures,  gave  the  same  diligence 


ITS  PRESENT  CONDITION.  233 

in  deducing  the  divinely-appointed  polity  that 
they  gave  in  deducing  the  divinely-revealed  doc- 
trine. They  expressed  their  sense  of  the  mind 
of  the  Spirit  in  the  Presbyterian  system  of  gov- 
ernment and  worship.  That  is  the  sense  of  the 
living  Church  as  well.  Many  of  us  subscribe 
to  the  opinion  of  the  "  London  ministers  "  that 
"  Presbyterianism  may  lay  the  only  lawful  claim 
to  a  divine  right  according  to  the  Scriptures." 
Very  few  among  us  are  in  any  doubt  whether 
the  fundamental  principles  of  this  polity  are 
laid  in  the  Scriptures,  even  though  some  would 
say  that  the  minuter  details  are  left  to  the  dis- 
cretion of  the  Church. 

The  lapse  of  a  century  has  added  nothing  to 
the  divine  authority  of  our  clmrcli  order.  But 
the  history  of  this  period  has  enriched  us  with 
the  experience  of  its  practical  wisdom.  We  have 
before  us  the  actual  workings  of  the  system  in 
conditions  very  peculiar.  On  the  third  Thurs- 
day of  May,  1789,  the  whole  Church  met  for  the 
first  time  in  General  Assembly,  making  com- 
plete its  organization.  Since  that  time  the  pop- 
ulation of  the  country  has  risen  from  four  mil- 
lions to  more  than  forty  millions.  The  inhab- 
ited territory,  then  "  a  mere  patch  on  the  earth's 
surface,"  has  expanded  to  continental  dimen- 
sions. The  ministers  of  this  Church,  then  one 
hundred  and  seventy-seven  in  number,  novv  exceed 

20« 


234  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH: 

four  thousand  seven  hundred  ;  the  four  hundred 
and  twenty  congregations  have  muUiplied  to  five 
thousand.  As  late  as  the  year  1810  our  commu- 
nicants numbered  less  than  twenty-nine  thousand; 
now  they  exceed  five  hundred  and  thirty-five 
thousand.  And  if  we  may  take  the  Southern 
Presbyterian  Church  into  this  account,  we  must 
add  to  these  numbers  nearly  one  thousand  minis- 
ters, eighteen  hundred  and  twenty  churches,  and 
one  hundred  and  twelve  thousand  one  hundred 
and  eighty-three  communicants. 

In  the  course  of  this  numerical  and  territorial 
expansion  several  problems  of  Church  policy 
have  been  well  solved. 

For  the  first  of  these,  it  has  been  demonstrated 
that  Presbyterianism  best  fulfills  all  its  offices  as 
a  gospel  Church  when  wholly  separated  from  the 
State,  indebted  for  no  patronage  and  owing  no 
organic  or  even  formal  allegiance  to  the  civil  power. 
This  Church  began  its  bold  experiment  of  self- 
support  and  self-government  by  removing  from  the 
Westminster  Confession  all  the  definitions  which 
gave  the  civil  magistrate  any  authority  over  the 
Church  in  matters  purely  ecclesiastical.  Hav- 
ing thus  settled  the  true  sense  of  God's  woi'd  in 
that  particular,  it  cast  the  whole  support  of  the 
gospel,  with  the  duty  of  spreading  the  same,  upon 
the  voluntary  contributions  of  the  people.  Touch- 
ing the  success  of  these  measures,  this  only  need 


ITS  PRESENT  CONDITION.  235 

be  said :  Our  example  is  one  of  the  forces  wliich 
is  likely  to  disestablish  and  disendow  the  mother- 
Kirk  itself. 

Another  and  more  complicated  problem  has 
been  solved.  It  is  now  an  assured  fact  that 
Presbyterianism  has  the  adaptability  and  strength 
to  graj^ple  with  difficulties  unknown  to  its  older 
home  in  the  British  islands.  These  difficulties 
arose  from  the  vastness  of  our  territory ;  from 
the  contact  of  the  white  and  black  races ;  from 
African  slavery ;  from  the  endless  migrations 
of  our  people  toward  the  West  and  the  South ; 
from  the  swarms  of  emigrants,  distracting  our 
modes  of  life  with  their  discordant  tongues  and 
religions  and  customs  and  prejudices ;  from  the 
alienations  which  grow  out  of  diverse  climates  and 
soils  and  labor  systems;  from  an  intense  sectional- 
ism and  sectarianism.  The  sufficiency  of  Presby- 
terianism in  the  midst  of  these  complications  is 
assured.  And  its  sufficiency  is  not  accidental ;  it 
resides  in  the  integral  elements  of  its  polity.  Let 
us  trace  its  actual  workings. 

Our  form  of  government  recognizes  the  office 
of  the  evangelist.  He  is  a  minister  "  ordained  to 
preach  the  gospel,  administer  sealing  ordinances 
and  organize  churches  in  frontier  or  destitute 
settlements."  He  takes  with  him  those  sacred 
functions  to  Nevada,  let  us  say,  or  to  Idaho  or  to 
the  regions  beyond,  to  us  known  or  unknown. 


236  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH: 

So  soon  as  a  congregation  is  gathered — and  for  a 
gospel  church  three  make  a  quorum — and  so  soon  as 
ruling  elders  are  ordained,  a  church-court  springs 
into  being,  clothed  with  the  power  of  the  whole 
Presbyterian  Church  in  the  admission  of  the  be- 
liever to  sealing  ordinances.  The  power  of  the 
kingdom  to  bind  and  to  loose  is  there  in  the 
keej^ing  of  that  church-session.  Other  congre- 
gations, let  us  say,  are  formed  in  those  regions, 
and  then  a  presbytery  is  created,  with  the  whole 
power  of  the  Church  in  ordaining  ministers  and 
ordering  the  affairs  of  the  several  congregations. 
In  whatever  far-off  region  there  are  in  existence 
the  two  primary  judicatories,  the  session  and  the 
presbytery,  the  lowest  in  supremacy,  but  the 
highest,  perhaps,  in  sacred  functions,  there  is  the 
Presbyterian  Church.  The  congregation  at  Deer 
Lodge,  in  the  Kocky  Mountains,  reports  only 
fifteen  members.  The  Presbytery  of  Montana, 
to  wliicli  it  belongs,  reports  three  ministers,  four 
churches  and  one  hundred  and  one  communicants, 
all  told.  But  that  congregation  and  its  pres- 
bytery are,  in  respect  to  the  power  of  the  keys, 
the  equal,  each  to  each,  of  the  most  important 
congregation  and  of  the  largest  presbytery  in 
the  land.  And  if  a  pastor  is  an  "  angel,"  in  the 
sense  of  the  Epistles  to  the  seven  churches  in 
Asia,  the  minister  of  Deer  Lodge  is  the  peer  of 
any  angel  of  the  Church  in  Philadelphia.     And 


ITS  PRESENT  CONDITION.  237 

finally,  tlio  organic  union  of  all  the  churches, 
near  and  far  away,  in  one  General  Assembly 
completes  for  us  a  way  of  government  which 
unites  indefinite  expansion  with  undiminished 
strength.  The  church-life  that  is  in  us  is  no 
less  vital  in  the  compass  of  a  continent  than 
within  the  limits  of  a  single  city ;  even  as  the 
Atlantic  cable  carries  its  messages  from  end  to 
end  not  less  faithfully  whether  it  be  coiled  up  in 
the  hold  of  the  Great  Eastern  or  whether  it  be 
stretched  from  the  Old  World  to  the  New. 

A  third  problem  which  has  been  solved  re- 
lates to  the  development  in  the  body  of  the 
Church  of  its  organs  for  spreading  the  gospel. 
The  first  General  Assembly  found  the  Church 
without  actual  equipment.  The  congregations 
were  there,  so  were  the  ministries  of  teaching,  of 
rule  and  of  distribution.  The  standards  of  doc- 
trine and  government  and  worship  were  set  up, 
and  the  four  spiritual  courts  were  organized  un- 
der a  wise  distribution  of  spiritual  powers. 
Gradually,  step  by  step,  the  various  boards  and 
committees  were  raised  by  the  General  Assembly 
through  which  the  Church  might  do  its  work. 
The  remarkable  fact  is  that  the  Church  was  able 
to  endure,  or  at  least  to  recover  from,  the  strain 
that  was  j)ut  upon  it  by  this  remarkable  growth 
and  expansion  from  within.  We  have  now 
reached  undivided  convictions  in  respect  to  this 


238  THE  PRESBYTERIAN   CHURCH: 

whole  subject.  We  are  unanimously  and  heart- 
ily agreed  in  the  opinion  that  to  the  Church,  as 
such,  and  to  its  tribunals,  Christ  has  committed 
the  whole  work  of  evangelizing  the  world.  It 
needs  for  this  purpose  no  new  class  of  office- 
bearers, no  new  agencies  for  the  raising  of  funds, 
no  new  societies  for  the  control  or  oversight  of 
missions,  home  and  foreign,  of  education,  of 
church -erection,  of  sustentation,  of  publication, 
or  of  any  other  department.  It  is  one  of  the 
assured  facts  in  our  condition — most  cheering  as 
well — that  we  go  forth  to  our  future  labors  with 
united  counsels,  and  with  perfect  confidence 
that  we  are  doing  the  Lord's  work  in  the  Lord's 
own  way.  That  way  was  laid  in  the  organic  law 
of  the  Church,  not  by  any  human  prescience  or 
half  foreknowledge,  but  by  the  Master  himself. 
And  the  Master  has  led  us  all  to  walk  in  that 
path  hand  in  hand,  together,  with  footsteps  not 
unequal.  And  now  we  transmit  to  those  who 
come  after  us  the  form  of  government  substan- 
tially unchanged,  even  as  we  received  the  same 
from  the  Fathers.  Its  features  have  been  pre- 
served. The  parity  of  ministry ;  the  office  of 
the  ruling  elder  and  deacon  ;  the  election  of  all 
ofiice-bearers  by  the  free  vote  of  the  people ;  the 
sole  power  of  the  ministry  in  the  administration 
of  sealing  ordinances ;  the  joint  and  equal  power 
of   the   keys   invested   in  the   ministry  and   the 


ITS  PROSPECTS.  239 

eldership ;  the  government  of  the  Church  by 
tribunals,  every  one  of  them — session,  presby- 
tery, synod,  general  assembly — composed  of 
two  classes  of  office-bearers,  the  minister  and  the 
ruling  elder — the  same  in  every  court  and  none 
others  in  any;  spiritual  power  everywhere  assert- 
ed, but  everywhere  limited  by  a  written  consti- 
tution ;  popular  rights  judicially  guarded — the 
greatest  among  us  amenable  to  his  brethren  and 
the  humblest  protected  by  the  whole  power  of 
the  Church ;  the  complete  independence  of 
the  Church  on  the  State — these  principles  of 
church- order  are  rooted  in  the  way  of  govern- 
ment now  transmitted  from  centennial  to  cen- 
tennial. 

II.  From  the  present  condition  of  the  Church 
the  transition  is  natural  to  its  prospects.  In  re- 
spect to  these  we  may  apply  to  ourselves  the  re- 
markable saying  of  Paul :  "A  wide  and  effectual 
door  is  opened  unto  us,  and  there  are  many  ad- 
versaries." The  apostle  appears  to  have  gathered 
courage  from  the  presence  of  his  adversaries,  as 
well  as  hope  from  the  opening  of  the  wide  and 
effectual  door.  Let  us  stand  face  to  face  with  the 
obstacles  which  may  oppose  themselves  to  tlie 
work  set  before  us. 

The  most  formidable  of  these  obstacles  stand 
in  the  way,  not  of  our  own  denomination  alone, 
but  of  the  whole  Churcli  of  God.     They  do  not 


240  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH: 

arise  from  controversies  among  the  various 
evangelical  denominations  which  dwell  side  by 
side.  The  doctrinal  position  of  every  leading 
Churcli  is  settled ;  its  way  of  order  and  worship 
is  settled ;  its  methods  of  Christian  work  are  set- 
tled. Much  controversy  on  these  subjects  is  seen 
to  be  superfluous.  Meanwhile,  a  zeal  for  church 
extension  has  taken  possession  of  us  all.  By  a 
common  impulse,  if  not  a  common  agreement, 
the  strength  of  all  true  believers  is  expended 
ujDon  the  unsaved  people  at  home  and  in  the 
heathen  lands.  Our  contention  now  is  for  the 
foremost  place  and  severest  labors  in  the  "  gos- 
jDcliziug  "  of  the  nations. 

The  difficulties  with  which  we  must  grapple 
are  partly  from  without — from  the  unbelieving 
world — and  they  are  of  modern  origin.  The 
gospel  is  in  no  jDcril  from  Jewish  legalism — that 
was  finished  with  the  age  of  the  apostles;  nor 
from  a  persecuting  idolatry — that  ceased  at  the 
accession  of  Constantine ;  nor  from  the  deadly 
embrace  of  imperialism — that  was  gradually  loos- 
ened among  the  successors  of  Constantine ;  nor 
from  the  apostasies  of  the  Middle  Ages — these 
were  renounced  at  the  Eeformation;  nor  from 
the  encroachments  of  the  civil  power  and  prelat- 
ical  authority — these  have  been  repelled.  But 
the  enemy  which  we  are  now  to  confront  is  en- 


ITS  FEOSFECTS.  241 

trenched  .in  the  bosom  of  a  splendid  material 
civilization.  The  instruments  and  forces  of  this 
new  life  of  Christendom  are  now  gathered  to- 
gether in  Philadelphia.  They  are  wonderful  in 
number  and  variety  in  every  department  of  in- 
dustry ;  in  machinery,  agriculture,  commerce, 
mining,  handicraft,  and  in  the  arts,  useful  and 
ornamental.  No  one  man's  understanding  is 
broad  enough  to  comprehend  this  exhibition. 
Eye,  ear,  brain  and  limb  are  fatigued  with  the 
brilliant,  noisy,  various,  vast  display. 

Now,  in  the  accumulation  of  wealth  and  the 
growth  of  culture  under  the  influence  of  this 
superb  material  civilization,  our  people  are 
finding  satisfaction  in  the  things  that  are  seen. 
The  realities  of  the  world  to  come  are  intended 
to  awaken  our  sense  of  wonder,  but  the  wonders 
of  this  world  shut  out  those  unseen  wonders. 
The  inward  thought  is  that  the  invisible  and 
supernatural  can  have  nothing  to  reveal  equal  to 
the  visible  and  the  natural.  A  sort  of  positivism 
in  its  most  hurtful  form  is  taking  root  among  us. 
It  is  the  religion  of  the  five  senses  and  of  the 
intellect  and  of  the  natural  sensibilities.  The 
cultivated  men  and  women  are  finding  a  religion 
satisfactory  to  themselves  in  natural  science  and 
its  brilliant  discoveries,  in  music,  painting  and 
architecture.  They  prefer  the  lecture-room,  the 
industrial    exhibition,    experimental    chemistry, 

21 


242  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH: 

astronomy,  microsco23y,  and  the  spectrum  analy- 
sis to  tlie  house  of  worship. 

Still  further,  this  material  civilization  falls  in 
with  the  latest  form  of  materialistic  unbelief. 
The  Corliss  engine  furnishes  the  positivist  with 
a  fresh  illustration  of  force.  "  Here,"  he  ex- 
claims, "  is  force  indeed — force  all  but  irresist- 
ible. This  at  last  solves  the  problem  of  the  great 
first  cause  :  Force  is  God."  Or  he  examines  the 
motion  expressed  by  the  engine,  its  revolutions, 
almost  astronomical  in  their  majesty  and  energy, 
its  forces,  projected  into  every  conceivable  di- 
rection, upward,  downward,  transverse,  forward, 
reversed,  circular,  eccentric,  here  swift,  there 
slow.  He  is  quick  to  say  that  Motion,  added  to 
Force,  is  God.  Or  having  studied  out  the  plan 
and  power  of  the  machinery  around  him,  and 
seen  the  skill  with  which  it  moulds  the  masses 
of  iron  and  weaves  the  gossamer,  he  is  ready  to 
suggest  that  Thought  is  the  master  of  Force  and 
Motion ;  and  now,  let  us  say,  Thought  is  God. 
Another  positivist  cuts  short  the  debate  by  de- 
claring that  God  is  an  insoluble  mystery,  an  in- 
scrutable problem ;  and  another  still  contents 
himself  with  the  dogma  that  the  idea  of  a  God 
is  unthinkable. 

Now,  a  more  thorough  examination  of  the  Ex- 
hibition will  show  that  Christianity  is  the  parent 
of  the  forces  which  are  changing  the  face  of  the 


ITS  FBOSPECTS.  243 

world.  The  exhibits  of  China  and  Japan,  tlie 
lacquer-work  and  porcelain,  the  carving  in  wood 
and  ivory,  the  bronzes,  are  wonderful,  but  they 
are  the  products  of  handicraft  alone.  The  steam- 
engine,  the  steamship,  the  locomotive,  the  railway, 
the  magnetic  telegraph,  are  products  of  Christen- 
dom. What  piece  of  machinery  of  substantial 
value  owes  its  existence  to  the  heathen  mind  ? 
When  the  agencies  of  our  splendid  civilization 
are  turned  against  the  religion  of  the  Bible,  we 
have  a  rejDetition  of  the  old  transgression — the 
creature  denying  the  creator. 

This  form  of  worldliness  will  beset  the  Church 
of  the  future.  A  difficulty  of  another  kind,  and 
arising  from  within,  must  be  anticipated.  Our 
history  does  not  assure  us  that  the  future  Church 
will  be  able  to  escape  internal  strife,  leading  to 
organic  divisions.  The  sense  of  visible  unity  is 
weaker  among  us  than  the  sense  of  individual 
freedom,  of  the  liberty  of  private  judgment,  of  the 
supremacy  of  conscience,  and  the  duty  of  resist- 
ing what  appear  to  be  ecclesiastical  misrule  and 
oppression.  From  the  ways  of  our  mother-Kirk 
in  Scotland  we  take  a  conviction  of  the  right  to 
go  out  from  the  Church  if,  in  the  last  extremity, 
we  find  no  other  means  of  asserting  sound  doc- 
trine, or  scriptural  church-order,  or  popular  rights, 
or  the  supremacy  of  Christ's  crown.  The  Presby- 
terians that  come  after  us  are  not  likely  to  be  less 


244  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH: 

set  in  tlieir  ways  than  the  fathers  who  divided 
the  old  synod  of  Philadelphia,  than  the  brethren 
of  the  Cumberland  Presbytery  in  1808,  than  the 
Presbyterians  of  1837  and  1861.  To  borrow  an 
illustration  from  the  recent  controversy  respect- 
ing sin  and  free-agency,  schism  seems  to  be  in- 
cidental, like  friction  in  machinery,  to  the  best 
possible  form  of  Presbyterianism.  But,  still  fur- 
ther, it  is  an  assured  fact  of  the  future  Church, 
if  it  follows  the  old  paths,  that  its  schisms  will 
be  healed  one  by  one,  except  in  cases  where  a 
certain  diversity  in  doctrine  or  church-order  has 
been  established.  The  rule  of  healing,  making 
the  divided  Church  every  whit  whole,  appears  in 
the  reunions  of  1758  and  of  1870.  The  excep- 
tion appears  in  the  separate  existence  of  the 
Cumberland  Presbyterian  Church  through  a 
period  of  now  nearly  seventy  j^ears.  But  another 
lesson  from  the  past  teaches  us  that  the  healing 
has  not  been  effected  in  the  immediate  generation 
that  received  the  wound.  The  division  of  1741 
continued  seventeen  years,  that  of  1837  continued 
thirty -two  years,  that  of  1861  continues  to  this 
day.  So  long  as  our  ancient  liberties  of  thought 
and  speech  are  preserved  there  is  likely  to  arise 
diversity  of  opinion,  to  be  followed  in  extreme 
cases  by  discussion,  then  debate,  then  eager  con- 
troversy, then  conflicting  protests  and  testimonies, 
then  organic  division.     So  long  as  the  standards 


ITS  BENEFICENT    WORK.  245 

of  the  Clmrcli  are  u]:)liel(l  by  the  svindered  por- 
tions, the  question  of  the  ultimate  healing  of  the 
breach  need  awaken  no  anxiety.  History,  in  the 
long  run,  is  likely  to  repeat  itself. 

III.  Another  topic  assigned  to  this  discourse  is 
the  beneficent  work  of  the  Church.  Here  we 
come  upon  the  legacy  which  we  bequeath  to  our 
children.  We  transfer  to  them  a  gospel  Church — 
a  Church  whose  aim  it  is  to  evangelize  the  world. 
The  plans  of  the  work  at  home  and  abroad  have 
been  laid.  At  home  we  are  endeavoring,  with 
our  brethren  of  other  communions,  to  possess  the 
whole  land.  Our  simple  plan  for  the  work 
abroad  is  to  plant  the  Church,  just  as  it  is,  in 
the  bosom  of  the  outlying  nations.  We  propose 
to  preach  the  pure  gospel  to  the  heathen ;  to 
translate  into  their  languages  the  Holy  Scripture 
as  the  rule  of  faith,  and  our  standards  as  a  sound 
exposition  of  that  rule ;  to  establish  for  their 
children  schools  of  godly  learning ;  to  set  up  the 
printing  press,  and,  if  we  may  so  say,  bestow 
upon  it  the  gift  of  tongues ;  to  gather  the  con- 
•verts  into  Presbytei'ian  congregations  and  the 
congregations  into  presbyteries  and  synods,  tak- 
ing care  that  they  and  we  shall  all  be  compacted 
in  one  General  Assembly :  many  peoples,  one 
communion;  many  languages,  one  testimony; 
many  kindred,  one  household  of  faith, — multiply- 
ing the  people  and  increasing  the  joy.    This  great 

21* 


246  THE  PEESBYTEPJAN  CHURCH: 

work  and  its  appointments  and  instruments  are 
now  turned  over  to  the  future  Cliurch. 

In  defining  our  beneficent  work  we  sliould  not 
overlook  our  duties  to  tlie  poor  and  tlie  diseased 
and  the  suffering. 

In  all  the  world  before  the  Christian  era  there 
was  no  hospital  for  the  sick  or  the  deaf  or  the 
blind  or  the  insane.  There  is  no  trace  whatever 
of  such  institutions  either  in  the  history,  or  in  the 
monuments,  or  in  the  ruins  of  any  rude  or  classic 
pagan  empire.  The  most  copious  language  of 
antiquity  contains  no  word  or  phrase  equivalent  to 
the  word  "  hospital."  In  Bethlehem  of  Judea  in 
the  fourth  century,  under  the  pastoral  care  of 
Jerome,  a  noble  lady  of  the  Fabian  family  insti- 
tuted the  first  hospital,  and  Jerome  coined  a 
Greek  work  to  designate  the  charity.  The  sug- 
gestive combinations  here  are  the  place,  Bethle- 
hem; the  founder,  a  christian  woman;  and  the 
patron,  the  translator  of  the  Scriptures, — all  asso- 
ciated in  the  original  evolution  of  the  gospel 
idea  of  relief  for  the  suffering.  That  is  undoubt- 
edly an  integral  part  of  the  gospel.  Christ 
healed  all  that  were  sick  of  divers  diseases. 
That  is  not  all :  he  healed  the  sick  on  the  Sab- 
bath day.  More  than  that,  he  healed  them  in 
the  midst  of  the  worship  of  the  synagogue. 
More  than  that,  even :  after  he  had  cleansed  the 
temple,  vindicating  the  sacredness  of  the  place, 


ITS  BENEFICENT  WORK.  247 

immediately  "  the  blind  and  tlie  lame  came  to 
him  in  the  temple  and  he  healed  them." 

In  these  works  the  Master  plainly  pointed  out 
the  connection  between  the  relief  of  human  suf- 
fering and  his  own  divine  mission,  his  own  holy 
day  and  the  holiest  habitation  on  earth,  even  the 
temple  first  purified  from  the  defilement  of  the 
world,  and  then  consecrated  anew  by  his  healing 
mercies. 

Here  is  an  example  with  a  duty  set  before  our 
Church,  to  the  fullness  of  which  we  have  not 
yet  attained.  Nobody  is  insensible  to  the  ad- 
vantages which  the  Church  of  Rome  has  gained 
by  combining  its  almost  boundless  charities  with 
its  creed  and  w^orship.  In  spite  of  its  errors  and 
corruption  and  spiritual  despotism,  its  churches 
still  grow  and  prosper,  even  in  this  Protestant 
country,  largely  through  its  hospitals  and  asy- 
lums and  nursing  fathers  and  sisters  of  charity. 

It  takes  care  to  identify  its  beneficence  with 
its  worship  and  spiritual  authority.  In  one  of 
the  largest  hospitals  in  Europe  the  wards  radiate 
from  a  common  centre,  like  the  spokes  of  a 
wheel.  In  the  centre  stands  the  altar  with  its 
sacred  furniture  and  officiating  priest.  You 
shall  see  the  sick  in  all  directions  lifting  up  their 
heads  wearily  from  their  pillows  to  gaze  upon 
the  altar,  according  to  the  analogy  of  the  brazen 
serpent,  and  the  convalescents  drawing  near  as 


248  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH: 

best  tliey  can  to  kneel  and  worship.  Home 
everywhere  connects  healing  with  her  faith  and 
priesthood.  It  will  be  a  memorable  day  for  this 
Churcli  when  we  shall  take  the  hint  from  Rome, 
or  rather  from  the  example  of  Christ.  Tlie 
work  is  nobly  begun  in  the  Presbyterian  hos- 
pitals pf  PJiihidelphia  and  New  York,  and  in 
orphan  asylums  and  infirmaries  greatly  multi- 
plied in  our  larger  congregations.  And  what  is 
not  less  cheering,  our  missionary  physicians  in 
heathen  lands  are  following  the  example  of 
Philip  in  his  first  visit  to  Samaria.  He  went 
down  thither  and  preached  Christ.  "  The  people 
with  one  accord  gave  heed  unto  those  things 
which  Philip  spake,  seeing  and  hearing  the  mir- 
acles which  he  did.  For  unseen  spirits,  crying 
with  loud  voices,  came  out  of  many  that  were 
possessed  with  them  ;  and  many  taken  with  pal- 
sies and  that  were  lame  were  healed.  And  there 
was  great  joy  in  that  citi/.'^  It  is  reserved  for  the 
future  Church  to  fill  up  the  compassions  of 
Christ,  to  build  infirmaries  for  the  sick,  homes 
for  the  aged,  to  set  up  the  house  of  mercy — the 
Hotel  Dieu — side  by  side  with  the  house  of 
prayer,  to  lay  the  coi'ner  stones  of  both  in  the 
name  of  the  blessed  Trinity,  blending  the  oflfice 
of  charity  with  the  office  of  salvation. 

IV.  One  word  in  regard  to  the  needs  and  ob- 
ligations of  the  Church.     These  connect  them- 


ITS  NEEDS  AND    OBLIGATIONS.  249 

selves  with  its  external  prosperity.  If  there  be 
strength  in  a  divinely-ordained  and  well-settled 
creed  and  way  of  government,  in  territorial  ex- 
pansion, in  swelling  nnmbers,  in  growing  wealth, 
in  knowledge  and  cnlture,  in  schools  of  both 
common  and  higher  learning,  secular  and  sacred, 
in  the  tried  instruments  of  our  work, — then 
this  is  a  strono-  Church.  If  there  "be  strenscth  in 
the  relations  which  our  history  sustains  to  the 
history  and  best  traditions  of  the  nation  in  the 
great  emergencies  of  its  colonial  and  revolu- 
tionary and  constitutional  periods,  then  we  are 
strong.  If  strength  abides,  always  unbroken 
and  invincible,  in  the  millions  of  the  middle 
classes,  from  which,  by  the  favor  of  God,  our 
congregations  are  mainly  gathered,  then  again 
we  are  strong.  If  there  be  strength  in  a  high 
vantage-ground  amidst  the  historical  Churches 
around  us,  sparing  much  treasure  in  men  and 
money  to  them,  and  yet  ourselves  not  impover- 
ished by  what  we  give,  then  again  we  are  strong 
— in  all  these  conditions  stronger  than  any  Pres- 
byterian communion  on  earth. 

But,  brethren,  we  will  not  forget  that  the  abid- 
ing strength  of  a  gospel  Church  flows  from  the 
person  of  Christ.  Self-denial  is  power,  zeal  for 
the  truth  is  power,  love  for  souls  is  power.  The 
exclusion  of  boasting,  the  crucifixion  of  self- 
seeking,  the   stamping  out  of  church-pride,  are 


250  THE  rRESBYTEBIAN  CHURCH. 

elements  of  power.  From  the  presence  of  Christ 
proceed  these  gifts  and  graces.  He  will  teach 
us  our  obligations,  he  will  supply  our  needs. 
His  is  the  kingdom  and  the  power  and  the  glory 
for  ever. 


AMERICAN   PRESBYTERIANISM: 

ITS  PAST  AND   ITS  FUTURE. 

THE  MODERATOR'S  SERMON  BEFORE  THE 
GENERAL  ASSEMBLY  OF   1876. 

BY   THE 

Rev.  EDWARD   W.  MORRIS,  D.D., 

PROFESSOR  OF  SYSTEMATIC  THEOLOGY,   LANE  SEMINARY,  CINCINNATI, 


CONTENTS. 


PAGB 

American  Presbyteriaiiism  in  the  Past. — Sprang  from  the  British 
Stock. — General  Conditions  of  Growth. — Gradual  Separation 
from  the  Parent  Stock. — Dependence  on  the  A^oluntary  Prin- 
ciple.— Peculiar  Commingling  of  American  Sects. — Liberty 
of  Thought  and  Speech. — Specific  Conditions  of  Growth. — 
Our  Special  Type  of  Tlieology. — Type  of  Polity. — Type  of 
Worship  and  Christian  Activity. — Eelations  to  the  Spirit  of 
the  Age. — Our  Actual  Growth. — Present  Condition  calls  for 
Gratitude. — The  Future  of  American  Presbyterianisra. — De- 
nominational Unity  Preserved. — Possible  XTnification  of  Amer- 
ican Presbyterianisra. — Presbyterian  Federation. — Conclu- 
sion   253-300 


AMERICAiN  PrESBYTERIANISM; 

ITS   PAST  AND  ITS  FUTURE. 


"  In  all  tlieir  afllictions  he  was  afflicted,  and  the  angel  of  his  pres- 
ence saved  them  :  in  his  love  and  in  his  jtity  he  redeemed  them, 
and  he  bare  theni  and  carried  them  all  the  days  of  old."  Isa.  Ixiii.  9. 

"Walk  ye  round  about  Zion,  and  go  round  about  her:  tell  the 
towers  thereof.  Mark  ye  well  her  bulwarks,  consider  her  palaces: 
that  ye  may  tell  it  to  tlie  generation  following.  For  this  God  is  our 
God  for  ever  and  ever."   Ps.  xlviii.  12-14. 

FATHERS  and  brethren  :  Officially  assembled 
in  this  holy  place  to  review  the  divine  good- 
ness toward  our  beloved  Church  in  the  past,  to 
consider  the  evidences  and  the  sources  of  her 
present  prosperity,  and  to  confirm  our  faith  in 
the  presence  and  blessing  of  God  through  com- 
ing time,  we  may  fitly  make  these  two  passages 
of  Scripture  the  basis  and  the  substance  of  our 
joint  meditations.  The  first  will  be  recognized 
as  a  psalm  of  commemoration,  celebrating  in 
beautiful  imagery  the  historic  grace  of  Jehovah 
toward  his  ancient  Church  and  people.  The 
second  is  a  hymn  of  joy  and  hope,  inspired  by 
a  survey  of  the  present  strength  and  beauty  of 
that  Church,  and  by  firm  confidence  in  her  pre- 

22  253 


254  AMERICAN  PRESBYTERIANISM: 

dieted  and  glorious  future.  In  their  eombination 
they  forcibly  suggest  the  cardinal  lesson  that  the 
Church,  in  all  ages  and  of  whatever  name,  enjoys 
in  a  special  sense  the  divine  nurture  and  protec- 
tion ;  they  reveal  our  God  as  the  God  of  his 
people  for  ever  and  ever. 

The  ecclesiastical  year  just  closing  has  been 
marked  by  many  illustrations  of  this  truth.  In 
the  prevalent  peace  and  concord,  in  the  abound- 
ing manifestations  of  loyalty  to  our  type  of  faith 
and  order,  in  the  measure  of  growth  and  progress, 
in  the  increase  of  our  m.inistry,  in  the  vigorous 
prosecution  of  our  denominational  work  at  home 
and  abroad,  and  especially  in  the  reviving  of 
religion  in  so  many  of  our  churches,  we  have 
tangible  proofs  that  the  angel  of  the  divine 
Presence  has  been  with  us,  and  has  carried  and 
folded  us  in  his  love.  The  promise  of  the  open- 
ing year  is  also  full,  rich,  abundant.  In  the  midst 
of  financial  depression  and  of  political  agitations 
the  faith  and  courage  and  devotion  of  our  peo- 
ple are  not  declining.  Our  denominational  en- 
terprises are  moving  forward  with  scarcely  di- 
minished energy.  Activity  and  consecration  still 
characterize  our  ministry.  Precious  revivals  are 
yet  in  progress,  and  our  churches  are  rejoicing 
in  numerous  accessions,  and  in  the  bloom  and 
fragrance  of  a  ripening  spiritual  life.  In  such 
favoring  circumstances,  does  it  not  at  this  sacred 


ITS  FAST  ANB  ITS  FUTURE.  255 

hour  become  our  foremost  duty  to  appropriate 
the  joyous  language  of  psalmist  and  of  prophet, 
and  to  celebrate  with  them  the  goodness  and 
grace  of  Him  wlio  is  the  Shepherd  of  Israel 
through  all  generations? 

Contemplating  the  career  and  condition  and 
prospects  of  our  Church  on  a  broader  scale,  how 
nuich  more  urgent  becomes  the  occasion  for  such 
psalms  of  commemoration,  such  hymns  of  joy  and 
of  hope !  In  this  historic  year  in  our  national 
life  our  minds  are  naturally  led  to  review  with 
fresh  interest  the  two  centuries,  nearly,  of  our 
denominational  existence  on  this  continent,  and 
to  trace  the  good  hand  of  our  God  upon  us  from 
age  to  age.  It  is  natural  also  to  note  the  vivid 
contrast  between  the  earlier  feebleness,  the  labors 
and  conflicts,  the  toilsome  development  of  the 
past,  and  the  mingled  strength  and  beauty  of  our 
present  Zion,  fortified  with  the  bulwarks  of  sal- 
vation and  bright  with  palaces  of  grace.  Nor 
can  we  refrain  at  such  a  time  from  looking  for- 
ward into  the  nearer  and  the  remoter  future,  and 
gathering  up,  alike  from  the  teachings  of  history 
and  the  witness  of  Scripture,  comforting  hopes 
and  assurances  respecting  the  career  of  our  de- 
nomination on  this  continent  in  the  generations 
and  the  centuries  which  are  to  come.  Oh  for 
minds  to  comprehend  the  wonders  of  the  divine 
dealing  as  thus  both  realized  and  jiromised,  and 


256  AMERICAN  PRESBYTERIANISM : 

for  hearts  that  exclaim  with  the  psalmist,  "This 
God  who  has  been,  who  now  is,  shall  continue  to 
be  our  God  for  ever  and  for  ever  "  ! 

Considered  in  these  broader  aspects,  the  occa- 
sion seems  to  prescribe  a  theme  which  commands 
present  consideration — the  past  and  the  future 
of  American  Presbyterianism.  While  I  realize 
painfully  the  contrast  between  the  magnitude  of 
this  theme  and  the  various  limitations  under 
which  I  must  labor  in  discussing  it,  I  propose  on 
the  one  side  to  present  some  pertinent  suggestions 
respecting  our  denominational  development  from 
the  first  planting  of  the  seed  to  the  present  era 
of  relative  vigor  and  maturity ;  and  on  the  other 
side,  to  indicate  in  general  the  true  line  of  pro- 
gress for  the  future,  and  to  name  some  of  the 
conditions  under  which  such  progress  may  be 
anticipated.  To  the  topic  thus  somewhat  vaguely 
announced  let  me  solicit  your  thoughtful,  sympa- 
thetic attention. 

AMEEICAN  PKESBYTERIANISM  IN  THE  PAST. 

In  glancing  at  the  history  of  American  Pi-es- 
byterianism  as  that  history  shades  off  into  tlie 
beautiful  and  cheering  present,  it  will  be  v>'ell  to 
note  at  the  outset  the  important  fact  that  this 
Presbyterianism  sj)rang  from  the  British  rather 
than  the  Continental  stock.  Continental  Presby- 
terianism, though  starting  at  the  Ileformation  as 


ITS  PAST  AND  ITS  FUTURE.  257 

the  primary  form  of  church  organization  accepted 
by  Protestantism,  and  associating  itself  by  strong 
and  vital   ties  with  the  Calvinistic  type  of  the 
Protestant  doctrine,  and  although  consequently  it 
had  the  start  in  position,  resources  and  opportu- 
nity, yet  failed  in  its  actual  development  to  justify 
the  earlier  promise,  and  especially  during  the  sev- 
enteenth  century  suffered  serious  deteriorations 
in  both  character  and  influence.     State  complica- 
tions, national    diflerences,  theological   rivalries, 
and  especially  the  bitter  conflict  with  Arminian- 
ism,  to  say  nothing  of  some  inherent  defects  in 
the  dominant  varieties  of  Presbyterianism  itself, 
had  conspired  together  to  change  the  serene  bloom 
of  the  morning  into  a  cloudy  and  ominous  day. 
But  the  Presbyterianism  of  the  British  Isles,  and 
especially  of  Scotland,  had  meanwhile  strength- 
ened and  improved  alike  in  essential  qualities  and 
in  ecclesiastical  position  ;  and  before  the  middle  of 
the  seventeenth  century  it  had  secured  for  itself 
a  permanent  home  and  a  commanding  influence 
from  Edinburgh  to  London.     There  was  much  in 
such  a  type  of  doctrine  and  order  which  was  cal- 
culated to  win  and  hold  the  British  mind.     Its 
strongly  intellectual  cast,  its  large  ethical  element, 
its  sharply-defined  religious  experiences,  its  prac- 
tical and  efficient  methods,  its  free  and  just  forms 
of  organization,  and  especially  its  clear,  positive, 
cogent  presentation  of  all  that  was  most  vital  in 

22* 


21S3.  AMERICAN  PRESBYTERIANISM: 

Protestantism,  gave  it  ready  entrance  and  won  for 
it  permanent  authority.  Under  sncli  favoring 
conditions  it  steadily  grew  and  flourished,  both 
northward  and  southward  ;  and  though  its  unwise 
struggles  after  State  recognition  and  prestige  con- 
stantly weakened  its  true  spiritual  influence, 
and  at  last  in  England  threw  it  back  into  a 
secondary  place  between  prelacy  and  independ- 
ency, yet  before  the  end  of  the  century  British 
Presbyterianism  had  confirmed  its  right  to  sepa- 
rate existence,  had  justified  its  positions  on  the 
broadest  scriptural  grounds,  had  embodied  and 
glorified  itself  in  the  symbols  of  Westminster, 
had  been  established  in  Scotland  as  the  national 
Church,  and  had  become  known  throughout 
Europe  as  one  of  the  most  effective  forces  in 
current  Protestantism. 

From  this  insular  stock  American  Presby- 
terianism was  derived  ;  to  this  British  ancestry  it 
mainly  owes  its  existence.  At  the  time  of  that 
primitive  transplantation,  independency  in  its 
two  varieties  already  possessed  New  England  ;  the 
Beformed  Church  of  Holland  had  planted  itself 
in  the  colony  of  New  York  ;  Catholicism  of  the 
English  type  had  taken  root  in  Maryland  ;  Penn- 
sylvania had  become  the  chosen  home  of  the  dis- 
ciples of  Fox,  and  Virginia  the  domain  of  an 
authorized  and  influential  Episcopacy.  Repre- 
sentatives of  the  persecuted  Presbyterianism  of 


JTS  PAST  AyD   JTS  FUTURE.  259 

France  had  ineamvhile  sought  refuge  in  the  Caro- 
lines, and  a  few  scattered  adherents  of  the  doc- 
trine and  order  of  Westminster,  chiefly  from 
Scotland  and  Ireland,  had  found  homes  at  vari- 
ous points  along  the  Atlantic  from  Baltimore  to 
Boston.  But  it  was  not  till  the  beginning  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  when  British  Presbyterians 
in  large  numbers  were  compelled  to  flee  from  the 
rigors  of  prelacy,  and  when  kindred  immigration 
from  other  quarters  had  become  more  extensive, 
and  sufficient  material  was  thus  provided,  that 
particular  congregations  began  to  be  formed  in 
Maryland  and  Pennsylvania,  and  the  first  presby- 
tery was  organized ;  and  our  Church,  as  an  his- 
toric body,  assumed  its  definite  place  among  the 
denominational  organisms  which  were  henceforth 
to  shape  together  the  religious  history  of  this  new 
continent. 

GENERAL  CONDITIONS  OF   GROWTH. 

As  we  trace  the  growth  of  the  germ  thus 
planted  we  discover  four  general  conditions — 
conditions  affecting  more  or  less  vitally  all  forms 
of  American  religious  life — under  which  such 
growth  has  been  attained.  Of  these  the  first  in 
time,  if  not  in  importance,  was  a  gradual  s(para- 
tion  from  the  parent  stock,  followed  by  a  conse- 
quent development  of  indigenous  varieties  in 
thought,  usage  and   experience.      The   Atlantic 


260  AMERICAN  PRESBYTERIANISM : 

was  then  a  broad  ocean  rather  tlian  a  narrow 
strait,  and  communication  with  the  Old  World 
was  both  infrequent  and  difficult.  The  young 
Church,  finding  foreign  support  uncertain  and 
inadequate,  was  early  thrown  back  upon  its  own 
resources  and  became  absorbed  in  the  task  of 
interior  development.  European  ideas,  interpre- 
tations, usages,  gradually  lost  authority;  ances- 
tral connections  and  interests  grew  relatively  un- 
important. The  original  British  material  was 
also  rapidly  modified  by  the  intermingling  of 
other  elements,  partly  from  Continental  sources, 
partly  from  New  England.  And  thus,  even 
during  the  first  period,  from  1706  to  1758,  a 
native  tyj)e  of  Presbyterianism,  fashioned  largely 
by  these  new  exigences  and  differing  in  some 
particulars  from  the  Scotch  noxm,  rose  into  shape 
and  vigor.  The  struggles  and  alienations  of  the 
Revolution  completed  this  process ;  and  with  the 
formation  of  the  General  Assembly  in  1788,  the 
American  Presbyterian  Church  may  be  said  to 
have  entered  fully  upon  its  career  of  independ- 
ent existence.  Preserving  sacredly  the  prin- 
ciples it  had  inherited,  it  yet  held  these  under 
such  limitations  as  were  demanded  by  its  new 
circumstances ;  losing  something,  doubtless,  in 
consequence  of  such  isolation,  it  also  gained 
much  that  was  indispensable  to  a  truly  national 
character   and    position.      Receiving   reverently 


ITS  PAST  AND   ITS  FUTVRE.  2G1 

the  Westminster  syiiibols  as  the  substance  of 
belief,  it  still  exercised  its  inherent  right  to  mod- 
ify these  symbols  so  far  as  their  teaching  seemed 
defective.  Adopting  cordially  the  polity  of  the 
mother-churches,  it  still  administered  that  polity 
in  a  spirit  and  in  methods  largely  its  own.  No 
longer  tScotch  or  Irish,  Huguenot  or  Puritan,  it 
thus  became  a  Church  distinctively  American, 
under  no  allegiance  to  foreign  authorities  or  pre- 
cedents, sustaining,  regulating,  developing  itself 
as  freely,  as  independently,  as  the  young  nation 
with  whose  life  and  career  it  was  so  closely  iden- 
tified. 

A71  entire  dependence  on  the  voluntary  prin- 
ciple constituted  another  of  these  general  condi- 
tions. During  the  seventeenth  century  no  less 
than  four  State  Churches  substantially  had  been 
established  in  the  American  colonies :  the  Papal 
in  Maryland,  the  Episcopal  in  Virginia,  the 
Dutch  in  New  York  and  the  Puritan  in  New 
England.  But  the  attempt  to  reproduce  here, 
even  in  more  spiritual  forms,  what  had  been  so 
disastrous  to  the  cause  of  Protestantism  in  Eu- 
rope was  a  predestined  fliilure ;  and  from  that 
failure  our  Church  was  providentially  exempt. 
Such  was  its  geographic  position,  and  such  were 
its  relations  to  these  denominations  and  to  the 
colonial  governments,  that  it  was  constrained 
from  the  outset  to  plant  itself  upon  the  voluntary 


262  AMERICAN  PRESBYTEBIANISM: 

principle  as  distinguished  from  all  forms  of  State 
support.  That  principle  had,  indeed,  as  history 
has  shown,  its  limitations  and  its  dangers ;  it 
tended  strongly  to  emphasize  theological  difier- 
euces,  to  cultivate  denominational  rivalries,  to 
develop  a  belligerent  spirit  of  sect,  ever  pregnant 
with  mischief.  But  the  principle  itself  was 
sound,  and  its  adoption  under  the  circumstances 
was  both  a  logical  and  a  practical  necessity.  It 
was  an  essential  element  in  that  broad  conception 
of  religious  liberty  which  had  already  appeared 
in  American  thought,  and  which  was  destined  to 
be  incorporated  as  a  cardinal  truth  into  the  very 
structure  of  American  society.  Under  that  prin- 
ciple the  Presbyterian  Church  from  the  begin- 
ning lived  and  praspered,  depending  on  no  re- 
giuni  donum,  asking  from  the  State  nothing  but 
protection,  and  resting  solely  on  the  devotion  and 
the  labors  and  sacrifices  of  those  who  loved  and 
were  willing  to  sustain  it.  To  the  Presbyterian- 
ism  of  the  Old  World  the  experiment  must  have 
seemed  anomalous  and  full  of  danger,  but  to  the 
young  Church,  just  rising  into  form  and  vigor,  it 
became  an  experiment  fraught  with  blessing. 
American  Presbyterianism  could  never  have 
risen  to  its  present  elevation  in  spirituality  or 
fruitfulness  had  it  not  thus  from  the  beginning 
cast  itself  irrevocably  upon  the  doctrine  that  the 
Church  of  Christ  rests  on  no  civil  supports,  and 


ITS   PAST  A  XI)   ITS  FUTURE.  2G3 

needs  neither  the  endorsement  nor  the  patronage 
even  of  the  mightiest  monarchs  of  earth. 

Another  general  condition  may  be  seen  in  the 
peculiar  collocation  and  commingling  of  the  vari- 
ous American  sects  in  a  common  struiisle  for  life 
and  for  growth.  In  the  Old  World  geographic 
bonndaries  had  largely  kept  apart  not  merely 
Romanism  and  Protestantism,  but  also  the  several 
varieties  of  Protestantism.  Even  durino:  the  six- 
teenth  century  the  Church  of  the  Keformation 
had  broken  up  into  a  series  of  national  or  pro- 
vincial churches,  held  together  by  a  certain 
theory  of  oneness,  but  in  fact  widely  sej^arate, 
and  consequently  but  little  in  conflict  among 
themselves.  In  the  New  World,  notwithstand- 
ing the  original  geographic  distributions,  each 
denomination  gradually  came  to  regard  itself  as 
inheriting  equally  with  every  other  the  entire 
continent,  and  the  struggle  for  possession  conse- 
quently became  inevitable  and  universal.  Cath- 
olicism was  compelled,  in  fact  as  well  as  in  form, 
to  admit  Protestantism  into  Maryland.  Episco- 
pacy was  constrained  to  recognize  the  right  of 
the  faith  of  AVestminster  to  propagate  itself  in 
Virginia.  Even  the  stronghold  of  Puritanism 
was  penetrated  successively  by  the  Baptist,  the 
Presbyterian,  the  Methodist  and  the  Episcopa- 
lian. Especially  after  the  Revolution  this  com- 
mingling of   sects,  with  its  consequent  rivalries 


264  AMERICAN  PRESBYTERIANISM: 

and  struggles,  became  universal ;  and  those 
churches  which  earliest  recognized  the  new  con- 
dition and  began  to  extend  their  borders,  not 
merely  westward  along  the  same  latitude,  but 
also  northward  and  southward,  upward  and 
downward,  among  all  classes  and  grades  of 
American  society,  were  those  which  grew  most 
rapidly  and  earliest  attained  a  commanding 
position.  Into  that  struggle  for  continental 
influence  the  Presbyterian  Church  entered  with 
great  earnestness.  Claiming  exclusive  possession 
nowhere,  it  claimed  joint  possession  everywhere. 
Fired  with  missionary  zeal  as  well  as  by  loyalty 
to  its  special  doctrine  and  order,  it  aspired  to 
become,  in  the  best  sense,  a  national  Church — a 
Church  for  the  American  people.  Joining  with 
other  sects  in  the  common  work  of  evangelism, 
it  still  lifted  high  its  own  blue  banner,  and 
welcomed  to  its  standard  all,  of  whatever  class, 
who  preferred  at  heart  the  Presbyterian  name ; 
and  while  this  mingling  and  collision  of  sects 
sometimes  resulted  in  sectarian  projDagandism,  it 
cannot  be  questioned  that  the  main  result  has 
been  one  of  blessing.  This  is  especially  true 
of  our  own  Church.  In  the  exposition  of  its 
theological  svstem,  in  the  administration  of  its 
polity,  in  the  temper  tmd  purpose  that  have 
animated  it^  and  especially  in  the  i^emarkable 
energy  and  efficiency  that  have  characterized  its 


ITS  PAST  AXI>   rrs  FUTURE.  2G5 

life,  that  Cluircli  lias  boon  tlie  better,  stronger, 
purer,  for  this  providential  experience. 

Leaving  this  truth  to  confirm  itself,  we  may 
further  note  a  fourth  general  condition — the  niil- 
versa!  liberty  of  tliomjht  and  of  speech  recognized 
as  a  fundamental  principle  in  American  society. 
The  doctrine  of  religious  liberty  had,  indeed, 
been  admitted  by  Protestantism  as  the  formal 
principle  of  the  Reformation,  yet  the  remaining 
pressure  of  traditional  and  churchly  authority 
had  largely  checked  the  right  in  its  actual  exei-- 
cise.  The  Protestant  churches  of  Europe  had 
learned  the  primary  lesson  of  toleration,  but  had 
failed  to  perceive  the  broad  distinction  between 
such  toleration  and  complete  religious  liberty. 
The  latter  was  ratJier  a  theory  than  a  living 
experiment.  On  American  soil  such  liberty 
more  readily  won  foi'  itself  both  recognition 
and  authority.  Civil  regulations  restraining  it 
were  gradually  repealed.  Illicit  assumptions 
were  rebuked  and  resisted,  and  the  freest  ex- 
pression of  individual  conviction  on  all  religious 
questions  became  the  controlling  law.  Tlie  ex- 
periment had,  indeed,  its  dangers.  The  doctrine 
sometimes  bore  tasteless  or  pyil  fruit.  In  some 
instances  it  even  threatened  to  vitiate  Chris- 
tianity itself.  Yet  it  caiinot  be  questioned  that 
American  theology  has  consequently  had  fi-eer 
rano-e  and  a  wider  influence,  or  that  the  American 


266  AMERICAN  PEESBYTERIANISM: 

Church  rests  on  firmer  supj)orts  and  holds  a 
firmer  place  in  the  popular  respect.  American 
Presbyterian  ism  least  of  all  has  had  reason  to 
apprehend  the  issues  of  such  a  test,  for  religious 
liberty  is  incorporated  as  a  principle  into  its 
constitution,  and  has  been  glorified  again  and 
again  by  its  battles  and  its  sufferings  for  the 
truth.  Notwithstanding  occasional  struggles 
along  the  somewhat  shadowy  border-lines  be- 
tween freedom  and  license  on  one  hand  or  be- 
tween freedom  and  authority  on  the  other,  the 
annals  of  our  own  Church  bear  noble  record  to 
the  fact  that  it  has  been  a  free  Church  as  well 
as  a  Church  for  the  people.  God  grant  that 
its  loyalty  to  the  cardinal  doctrine  of  religious 
liberty — a  doctrine  vital  to  all  Protestantism — 
may  never  be  impaired  ! 

SPECIFIC  CONDITIONS  OF  GROWTH. 

Besides  these  four  generic  conditions,  which 
have  affected  more  or  less  vitally  all  forms  of 
religious  life  on  this  continent,  there  are  cer- 
tain specific  conditions  peculiarly  affecting  our 
own  Church  and  largely  determining  its  charac- 
ter and  its  development.  Of  these  the  first  is 
our  special  type  of  theology,  considered  both 
intrinsically  and  in  comparison  with  other  theo- 
logical beliefs.  It  is  a  historic  truth  that  Calvin- 
ism, though  one  in  genus,  has  always  existed  in 


ITS  PAST  ASD   ITS  FUTUllK  267 

several  species  more  or  less  distinct,  cliaracterized 
chiefly  by  the  relative  elevation  or  depression  of 
some  particular  element,  or  by  some  special  com- 
bination or  arrangement  of  the  several  elements 
composing  the  system.  The  main  occasions  for 
such  variations  are  found  in  the  peculiarities  of 
individual  minds,  in  national  temperament  and 
characteristics,  in  philosophical  systems  and  tend- 
encies, and  in  other  natural  and  ethical  causes. 
Some  foundation  for  them  also  appears  in  the 
widely-varied  forms  and  connections  in  which  the 
truths  common  to  the  system  are  presented  by  in- 
spired minds  in  the  Scripture  itself.  Such  varie- 
ties have,  from  time  to  time,  appeared  even  in  Eu- 
rope, as  the  history  of  European  Calvinism  abun- 
dantly demonstrates ;  in  this  country,  for  various 
reasons,  they  have  ahvays  been  manifest.  No 
single  species  of  Calvinism  has  at  any  time  been 
able  to  gain  comi:)lete  supremacy,  or  to  stand  forth 
historically  as  tlie  sole  representative  of  the  com- 
mon system.  Turretin  has  shared  the  sceptre 
with  Edwards,  and  Edwards  with  Turretin. 
Diverse  theories  have  been  constrained  by  the 
pressure  of  common  necessities  to  recognize,  and 
for  the  most  part  to  respect,  each  other.  Wher- 
ever any  of  these  varieties  have  attempted  to  take 
entire  control  of  the  Church,  the  issue  has  always 
been  a  loss  of  vigor  and  fruitfulness  ;  and  in  some 
instances,  as  in  the  Wars  of  the  Koses,  the  attempt 


268  AMERICAN  PRESBYTERIANISM: 

has  ended  in  internecine  conflict,  disruption  and 
decline.  The  periods  of  relative  prosperity  and 
growth  have  invariably  been  those  in  which  these 
differentiated  species  have  appreciated  their  com- 
mon relations  to  the  one  generic  system,  and  have 
been  content  to  dwell  and  act  together.  American 
Calvinism  is  thus  composite  in  character — gener- 
ically  one,  specifically  different,  sometimes  diver- 
gent. It  cannot  be  otherwise ;  and  consequently, 
the  true  law  of  existence  and  of  fruitfulness  must 
ever  be  a  law  of  balances,  adjustments,  reconcilia- 
tions. TJiere  must  be  no  war  between  the  red 
rose  and  the  white. 

Considered  comparatively,  American  Calvin- 
ism has  also  been  modified  by  its  contact  with 
other  theological  systems,  and  especially  by  its 
relations  to  the  popular  mind,  upon  whose  accept- 
ance its  outward  j^rospering  has  been  dependent. 
As  it  has  doubtless  influenced  other  theological 
systems  by  the  strong  impression  it  ever  makes, 
it  has  in  turn  been  affected  and  in  some  measure 
moulded  by  their  antithetic  teaching.  Especial- 
ly it  is  important  to  note  that,  coming  before  the 
people  as  before  a  jury,  it  has  been  constrained  to 
drop  off  all  assumptions  of  authority,  to  lay  aside 
technical  and  abstract  conceptions,  to  state  itself 
in  the  most  lucid  and  practical  forms,  to  give 
reasons,  proofs,  demonstrations,  and  thus  to  com- 
mend itself  comparatively  to  the  popular  respect. 


ITS  PAST  AND  ITS  FUTURE.  2(50 

It  lias,  therefore,  become  a  preacliable  and  a 
preached  theology,  finding  its  best  developments 
rather  in  the  pulj^it  than  in  the  theological  chair, 
and  holding  its  place  in  American  thonght  chiefly 
throngh  the  living  ministry  who  from  age  to  age 
have  proclaimed  it.  Men  like  the  Tennents  and 
Davies  and  Witherspoon,  like  Edwards  and  Hop- 
kins and  Dwight,  have  given  to  American  Cal- 
vinism its  least  technical  and  scholastic,  its  most 
flexible  and  persuasive  and  fruitful,  forms  of  ex- 
pression. And  if  these  j)ractical  exigences  have 
tended  to  repress  the  growth  of  what  may  be  de- 
scribed as  a  more  symmetrical  type  of  speculat- 
ive dogmatism,  formed  after  the  m<xlels  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  they  have  created  a  si^ecies 
of  Calvinistic  teaching  no  whit  less  scriptural, 
less  strong,  less  prolific  of  good.  Our  Calvinism, 
therefore,  is  and  must  continue  to  be  a  preached 
and  a  preacliable  Calvinism — Calvinism  ever  ad- 
dressing itself  directly  to  the  mind  and  heart  and 
conscience  of  the  people,  Calvinism  supremely  con- 
cerned with  the  souls  of  men,  and  wielding  every 
divine  truth  embodied  in  it  under  the  awful  pres- 
sure of  a  scriptural  interest  in  human  salv^ation. 
Whether  even  this  type  of  Calvinism  does  not 
make  too  great  demand  upon  the  average  think- 
ing capacity  to  be  in  a  broad  sense  popular — 
whether  it  does  not  contain  too  many  recondite 
elements   and  require  too   much  of  close  study 

23  « 


270  AIIIEEWAN  PBESBYTEBIANIS3I: 

and  of  thorough  ratiocination  to  secure  the  ready 
allegiance  of  all  varieties  and  grades  of  mind — 
whether,  consequently,  it  must  not  remain  in  some 
degree  the  religion  of  a  class  until  the  masses  are 
sufficiently  cultured  theologically  to  receive  it, — 
it  would  be  difficult  absolutely  to  deny. 

Our  type  of  polih/  furnishes  the  second  of 
these  special  conditions.  Like  our  theology,  this 
polity  is  a  thoroughly  systematic  construction, 
resting,  as  we  believe,  on  solid  scriptural  founda- 
tions and  shaped  in  accordance  with  clear  scrip- 
tural principles  gradually  developed  and  im- 
proved by  three  centuries  of  extensive  experi- 
ment, and  justifying  itself  to  our  minds  by  the 
most  careful  tests  of  equity  and  by  its  marked 
illustration  of  the  holy  charities  of  the  gospel. 
Under  that  polity,  and  through  it  in  part,  Amer- 
ican Presbyterian  ism  has  grown  and  ripened 
from  the  period  of  its  colonial  planting  down  to 
the  present  hour,  at  times  embarrassed  by  the 
discovery  that  even  the  best  government,  admin- 
istered by  erring  human  hands,  may  prove  inad- 
equate ;  at  times  humiliated  by  the  sad  issues  that 
have  resulted  from  attempting  to  administer  that 
government  in  a  temper  at  variance  with  its  true 
spirit ;  yet  in  the  main  satisfied  in  view  of  the 
long  experiment,  and  proud  of  a  system  which, 
in  its  principles,  its  methods  and  its  fruits,  has 
shown  itself  so  deserving  of  allegiance.     Under 


ITS  PAST  A^^JJ  ITS  FUTURE.  271 

a  different  polity,  less  iu  affiliation  -svitli  its  doc- 
trine and  its  temper,  it  is  hardly  probable  that 
the  Presbyterian  Church  iu  America  could  have 
attained  its  present  position  ;  to  that  polity  no 
small  proportion  both  of  its  growth  and  of  its 
influence  is  due. 

Yet  it  must  be  admitted  that  oui'  type  of  gov- 
ernment, like  our  type  of  doctrine,  has  to  some 
extent  limited  the  development  to  which,  con- 
sidered in  other  aspects,  it  has  so  largely  contrib- 
uted. In  a  form  of  society  like  ours,  where 
tendencies  strongly  democratic  and  tendencies 
strongly  aristocratic,  or  even  monarchical,  are 
alike  manifest,  it  is  not  strange  that  varieties  of 
polity  more  strongly  marked  by  the  one  or  the 
other  of  these  tendencies  should  vie  with  our 
own  for  popular  approval  and  support.  It  is 
also  obvious  that  a  system  characterized  by  so 
many  balances  and  adjustments,  apparently  in- 
tricate and  even  difficult  in  application,  should 
sometimes  awaken  objections  and  be  thrown  aside 
for  simpler,  but  at  the  same  time  less  effectual, 
conceptions  of  what  the  Christian  Church  in  its 
polity  should  be.  There  are  also  exigences,  as 
the  history  of  American  Christianity  has  shown, 
in  which  all  forms  of  Church  government  betray 
their  weakness  rather  than  their  strength ;  and 
it  would  be  rash  to  assert  that  the  popular  esti- 
mate  of   American    Presbyteriauism   has   never 


272  AMERICAN  PRESBYTERIANISM: 

been  iinfavorablv  afifected  by  such  historic  expe- 
riences. TJie  polity  through  which  we  have 
grown  into  vigor  and  efficiency  has  sometimes 
bound,  and  may  yet  bind,  us  so  closely  as  to 
check  healthful  circulation  and  to  repress  the 
free  pulsations  of  the  very  life  which  it  was  or- 
dained to  bless. 

There  are  two  other  special  conditions  which 
deserve  careful  consideration,  but  which  can  only 
be  named  in  this  connection — the  third,  as  man- 
ifested in  OUT  type  of  worship  and  of  Christian 
activity ;  the  fourth,  as  apparent  in  our  denomi- 
national relations  to  the  spirit  of  the  age  and  to 
certain  marked  tendencies  in  American  life. 

OUR  ACTUAL  GEOWTH. 

In  the  light  of  these  conditions,  generic  and 
special,  it  becomes  easy  to  read  at  a  glance  the 
actual  history  of  American  Presbyterianism.  The 
true  character  of  the  original  nucleus  and  or- 
ganization, the  nature  of  the  adopting  act  of 
1729,  the  ground  and  secret  of  the  sad  rupture 
of  1741,  the  coalescing  agencies  in  the  process 
of  reunion  in  1758,  the  growth  amid  divei'sities 
till  the  formation  of  the  continental  assembly  in 
1788,  the  real  meaning  of  that  decisive  step  in 
our  establishment  as  a  national  Church,  the  rapid 
expansion  and  maturing  that  followed  during  the 
first  decades  of  the  present  century,  the  gradual 


ITS  PAST  ANV   ITS  FUTURE.  273 

rise  of  parties  aud  of  conflicting  interests  and  tend- 
encies, the  pitiful  division  of  1837,  the  separate 
career  of  the  fragments  of  the  divided  Churcli, 
the  reunion  of  1870,  with  all  that  accompanied 
or  has  followed  it,  and  the  present  temper  and 
attitude  and  prospects  of  the  Church,  now  once 
more  united,— all  these  are  easily  read  and  un- 
derstood in  the  clear  light  of  these  regulative 
conditions.     These  also  account  for  the  external 
growth  as  well  as  the  historic  events  recorded  in 
the  annals  of  our  beloved  Church.     Its  rise  from 
the  maiu  fountain  in  Maryland  and  Pennsylva- 
nia, its   northward  spread  through  New  Jersey 
and  New  York,  and  even  into  New  England,  its 
southerly  sweep  along  the  Atlantic  coast,  where 
French  Huguenotism  had  prepared  the  way,  its 
westward  movement  along  these  various  parallels 
of  latitude  till  it  had  reached  the  Alleghanies, 
and  through  their  three  great  passes  had  flowed 
over  into  bhio  and  Kentucky  and  the  territories 
adjacent,  its   ever-widening   and   yet  deepening 
current  toward  and  beyond  the  Mississippi,  and 
its  present  continental  position,  occupying,  if  we 
may  include  with  ourselves  the  Southern  branch, 
every  State  west  of  the  Hudson,  every  Territory 
from  Arizona  to  New  Mexico,  and  even  the  ftiir 
young  empire  that  sits  as  queen  on  the  golden 
shore  of  the  Pacific,— all  this  wonderful  growth 
is  attributable,  under  the  divine  favor  and  the 


274  AMERICAN  rBESBYTERIANISM : 

inhereDt  potencies  (<f  a  s|)iritual  Christianity,  to 
these  quickening  and  determining  principles. 
The  position  of  our  body  among  evangelical 
denominations,  the  hold  it  has  gained  upon  pop- 
ular confidence  and  respect,  the  social  power  it 
is  wielding  for  Christ  and  his  cause,  the  place  it 
occupies  in  American  Christianity,  the  influence 
it  is  already  exerting  upon  the  Presbyterianism 
and  the  Protestantism  of  the  world, — these  also 
must  be  recognized  as  the  direct  and  the  beautiful 
result  of  the  same  organizing  laws. 

Contemplated  in  this  light,  the  present  condi- 
tion of  our  Church  calls  for  the  profound  est 
gratitude  and  for  holy  exultation.  Contrast  the 
seven  ministers  and  the  handful  of  churches, 
weak,  scattered,  undeveloped,  which  constituted 
the  first  presbytery  of  1706,  with  the  present 
aggregate  of  36  synods  and  173  presbyteries, 
4706  ministers  and  4999  churches,  506,034  com- 
municants and  520,452  Sabbath-school  children, 
and  hardly  less  than  two  millions  of  worshipers. 
Contrast  the  rude  edifices  in  which  our  fathers 
at  Kehoboth  and  Bnow  Hill  and  elsewhere  wor- 
shiped God,  and  the  scant  contributions  which 
they  w^ere  able  to  make  toward  the  support  of 
religion,  with  the  multitude  of  our  sanctuaries, 
valued  at  tens  of  millions,  and  with  our  contri- 
butions in  1874-5  of  $6,900,000  tow^ard  church 
purposes,  and  of  $2,725,000  toward  the  general 


ITS  PAST  AXl)   ITS  FUTURE.  275 

cause  of  evangelization.  Contrast  tlie  position  of 
our  Church  at  the  outset — a  feeble  sect  in  the 
midst  of  sects  already  established  and  dominant, 
suspected  in  New  England,  imprisoned  in  the  per- 
son of  Makemie  in  New  York,  despised  in  Mary- 
land and  banislied  from  Virginia — with  its  pres- 
ent almost  central  place  in  American  society,  free 
to  plant  itself  in  city  or  country  from  one  edge 
of  the  continent  to  the  other,  its  principles  and 
teaching  respected  and  its  influence  everywhere 
felt  and  welcomed — a  Church  known  and  hon- 
ored of  men  as  one  of  the  chief  agencies  in  the 
spiritual  culture  of  the  American  people.  Con- 
trast its  primitive  attitude  as  essentially  a  for- 
eign Church,  importing  alike  its  ministers  and  its 
membership,  and  largely  dependent  on  the  gen- 
erous support  which  KScotch  and  English  Presby- 
terians gave  it,  clinging  tremblingly  to  the  very 
words  .of  its  Confession  even  as  to  the  religious 
functions  of  the  civil  magistracy,  and  adhering 
punctiliously  to  every  shred  of  European  law  or 
usage.  Contrast  this  with  its  present  attitude 
as  a  thoroughly  American  Church,  into  which 
all  foreign  elements  have  been  dissolved,  from 
which  foreign  control  is  excluded,  having  modi- 
fied even  its  Confession  to  adjust  it  to  American 
conceptions  of  freedom  in  both  Church  and  State, 
possessing  precedents  and  usages  and  a  mode  of 
administration  peculiarly  its  own,  yet  having  lost 


276  AMERICAN  PRESBYTERIANISM : 

nothing  tliat  is  essential  to  its  proper  character, 
and  justly  recognized  even  in  Edinburgh  as  trul}'' 
and  grandly  representative  of  the  Presbyterian- 
ism  of  Melville,  of  Knox,  of  Calvin  himself. 

In  the  light  of  such  contrasts  the  career  of 
American  Presbyteriauism,  as  exhibited  in  its 
various  branches,  must  be  regarded  as  one  of  the 
miracles  of  modern  Christianity.  It  has  hardly 
a  parallel,  except  it  be  in  the  develoj)ment  of 
Methodism,  English  and  American,  from  the 
small  seed  planted  at  Oxford  in  1729,  to  its  pres- 
ent magnificent  proportions.  A  century  ago 
Methodism  was  but  just  introducing  itself  through 
a  few  faithful  preachers  into  Philadelphia  and 
New  York,  and  its  entire  membership  on  this 
continent  numbered  scarcely  a  thousand ;  now  its 
sing-ino;  leojions  make  the  continent  tremble  with 
their  tread,  and  the  song  of  their  triumphs,  like 
the  fabled  drum-beat  of  England,  is  heard  well- 
nigh  round  the  globe.  A  century  ago  American 
Presbyteriauism  was  represented  by  133  ministers 
only;  its  churches,  feeble  and  scattered,  were 
scarcely  more  numerous,  and  its  membership 
cannot  have  exceeded  six  or  eight  thousand.  The 
single  State  of  Missouri  now  contains  more  Pres- 
byterian  ministers,  churches  and  members,  with 
far  ampler  resources,  than  could  then  have  been 
found  in  all  the  continent.  The  number  of  both 
ministers  and  churches  has,  during  the  century, 


ITS  PAST  AXD   ITS  FUTURE.  277 

increased  more  tlian  tliirtyfold  ;  even  during  the 
past  fifty  years  our  ministry  have  multiplied  six- 
fohl,  our  churches  fouifokl,  our  membership  eight- 
fold. Such  advance  is  hardly  less  than  miracu- 
lous ;  and  as  we  walk  to-day  with  reverent  tread 
about  our  beautiful  Zion,  telling  her  towers  and 
bulwarks  and  considering  the  palaces  of  her 
glory,  w^e  must  be  blind  indeed  if  we  do  not  rec- 
ognize in  all  this  the  sure  evidence  of  a  divine 
presence,  and  exclaim  with  the  prophet  of  Israel, 
In  his  love  and  in  his  pity  he  redeemed  us ;  he 
bare  us  and  carried  us  all  the  days  of  old. 

AMERICAN  PRESBYTERIANISM  IN  THE  FUTURE. 

Turning  at  this  point  to  consider  the  futnre 
of  American  Fresbyterianism,  as  that  future  is 
indicated  and  to  some  extent  determined  by  the 
present  and  the  past,  we  pass  into  another  and  a 
more  difficult  sphere  of  investigation.  The  ques- 
tions that  confront  us  are  incomparably  more 
solemn,  and  the  summons  to  personal  duty  be- 
comes immediate  and  commanding.  AVhat  is  the 
true  line  of  progress  for  a  Church  so  constituted, 
so  located,  so  endowed  ?  What  are  the  conditions 
under  which  such  progress  may  be  anticii)ated? 
Is  our  Church  to  preserve  its  unity  from  genera- 
tion to  generation,  and  to  go  on  expanding  with 
the  coptinent  century  by  century  ?  Is  American 
Fresbyterianism  ever  to  be  unified,  and  through 


278  AMERICAN  PBESBYTERTANTSM : 

one  vast,  earnest,  effective  organism  to  fulfill  its 
sublime  mission  in  and  for  American  society  ? 
And  what  are  to  be  the  relations  of  our  Churcli, 
and  of  American  Presbyterianism,  to  the  Churches 
of  our  general  type  of  faith  and  order  and  to  the 
cause  of  Presbyterianism  throughout  the  world, 
and  also  to  that  ultimate  unification  of  Protestant- 
ism on  which  the  salvation  of  our  race  and  the 
introduction  of  the  millennial  age  seem  to  be  de- 
pending ?  Around  such  questions  we  may  rever- 
ently linger  for  a  little  season. 

DENOMINATIONAL  UNITY  PRESERVED. 

The  life  of  a  great  denomination  is  always 
exposed  to  perils.  It  has  a  general  guaranty  of 
permanence  so  far  as  it  holds  to  the  truth,  is  ani- 
mated by  the  right  spirit  and  engaged  in  the 
distinctive  work  given  to  it  by  the  Master.  But 
such  permanence  is  dependent  also  on  many  sub- 
ordinate conditions,  chiefly  natural  and  human ; 
and  a  Church  which  at  one  time  seems  strong, 
vigorous,  enduring  as  an  oak,  may  in  an  liour  of 
sudden  tempest  be  prostrated  in  the  dust.  Some 
new  practical  issue,  some  absorbing  question  of 
policy,  some  collision  of  relative  rights  or  privi- 
leges, some  wild  development  of  party,  some 
theological  dogma  or  philosophic  speculation,  may 
sunder  the  strongest  ecclesiastical  ties  and  rend 
the  soundest  body  into  quivering  fragments.     The 


ITS  PAST  AND  ITS  FUTURE.  279 

records  of  Protestantism,  and  even  of  Presby- 
terianism,  both  European  and  American,  furnish 
sad  confirmation  of  this  statement.  One  of  the 
clearest  lessons  of  modern  Church  history  is  the 
truth  that  sects,  like  men,  are  constantly  exposed 
to  such  dangers,  and  that  they  j^reserve  their 
existence  only  by  the  strictest  compliance  with 
the  laws,  the  principles,  the  conditions,  under 
which  such  existence  was  first  established. 

The  hope  that  our  Church  will  be  wholly 
freed  from  such  perils  is  fallacious ;  the  antici- 
pation of  their  presence  and  operation  is  reason- 
able ;  the  dark  possibility  which  such  presence 
involves  must  be  recognized.  It  has,  indeed, 
been  predicted  that  these  divisive  influences, 
happily  arrested  for  the  time,  will  soon  flow  in 
upon  us  in  possibly  increased  volume ;  that  cur- 
rent varieties  in  thought,  usage,  tendency,  though 
now  freely  allowed,  will  in  the  future  become  ex- 
clusive and  intolerant  of  each  other;  and  that 
the  fair  fabric  of  union  which  this  generation 
is  engaged  in  rearing  wall  finally  give  way  be- 
fore these  coming  tempests,  and  will  lie,  like  tlie 
temple  of  Solomon  before  the  armies  of  Nebu- 
chadnezzar, a  ruin  utter  and  terrible.  Attention 
is  also  called  to  specific  dangers  which  may  arise 
to  threaten  our  peace;  to  the  many  difficult 
questions  of  principle  and.  of  method  which 
must  spring  up  in  carrying  forward  our  exten- 


280  AMERICAN  PEESBYTERIANISM : 

sive  denominational  work ;  to  the  liability  to  an 
excessive  concentration  of  power  at  civic  centres 
and  in  the  various  boards  and  agencies  of  our 
Church  ;  to  the  perils  involved  in  the  existence 
of  a  denominational  press,  largely  independent 
and  irresponsible,  yet  holding  in  its  hands  not 
merely  the  reputation  of  individuals,  but  also 
the  good  name  and  prosperity  of  the  denomina- 
tion ;  to  the  natural  tendency  of  educational  in- 
stitutions, especially  theological,  to  become  the 
active  representatives  and  propagators  of  some 
peculiarity  in  doctrine  or  tendency,  and  by  their 
rivalries  and  wranglings  to  break  up  the  general 
concord ;  to  the  possible  rise  of  some  new  heresi- 
arch,  departing  from  the  essential  truths  of 
grace,  and,  like  the  red  dragon  in  the  Apoc- 
alypse, drawing  after  him  the  third  part  even  of 
the  stars  of  heaven.  Where  such  specific  dan- 
gers are  not  directly  apprehended,  it  still  is 
feared  that  the  fine  balance  of  doctrine  main- 
tained in  our  Confession  and  catechisms  will  not 
always  be  preserved  in  the  current  belief  and 
teaching ;  that  the  antitheses  which  have  always 
existed  in  historic  Calvinism,  and  which  must 
always  exist  in  a  system  so  complex  and  compre- 
hensive, will  yet  break  forth  into  antagonism 
and  rupture ;  that  liberty  will  finally  degenerate 
into  license  or  orthodoxy  into  dogmatism,  and 
license  plot  against  orthodoxy  or  dogmatism  as- 


ITS  PAST  AND  ITS  FUTURE.  281 

sail  liberty,  until  disruption  ends  the  unnatural 
alliance  between  them.  We  are  reminded  that, 
of  all  men,  Presbyterians  are  most  likely  to 
differ,  and  to  differ  around  issues  involving  prin- 
ciple, and  therefore  to  differ  conscientiously,  in- 
tensely, destructively,  and  that  no  branch  of  the 
Presbyterian  body,  European  or  American,  has 
ever  long  escaped  such  differentiating  and  disin- 
tegrating experiences.  And  it  is  consequently 
judged  that  the  holding  together  of  a  million 
Presbyterians  in  one  Church  for  a  whole  century 
would  be  a  miracle,  to  be  credited  only  when  the 
wondering  eyes  of  the  world  shall  have  seen  it. 

May  we  not  grant  the  existence  of  such  liabil- 
ities without  acquiescing  in  the  conclusion  toward 
which  they  point  ?  Under  the  beneficent  influ- 
ences of  the  recent  union  our  Church  is  rap- 
idly passing  into  a  new  condition  of  coherence, 
strength,  maturity.  AVithout  sacrificing  a  single 
principle  or  surrendering  any  historic  quality,  it 
is  assuming  a  new  position  and  entering  upon  a 
grander  career.  Its  coalescing  elements  are  con- 
sciously strengthened,  improved,  utilized,  by  their 
combination.  Elements  of  weakness  or  of  dis- 
cord on  either  side  are  becoming  eliminated  or 
neutralized.  As  the  Church  has  broadened  in 
sphere  and  becoine  more  truly  national  it  has 
steadily  grown  stronger  rather  than  weaker. 
And  as  this  aj-ticulating  process  grows  forwartl 


282  AMERICAN  rEESBYTEEIANIS3l: 

we  may  reasonably  expect  the  development  of 
new  bonds,  the  growth  of  mutual  confidence,  the 
increase  of  enthusiasm  around  common  interests, 
and,  above  all,  the  cordial  absorption  of  the 
whole  body  in  the  grand,  the  continental  work, 
which  the  Master  is  already  spreading  before  it. 
Amidst  such  fresh  experiences  and  under  the  in- 
spirations of  such  a  new  career  these  particular 
dangers  will  grow  less  and  less;  mischievous 
men  will  be  less  and  less  able  to  work  mischief; 
the  shibboleths  of  party  and  the  battle-cry  of 
factions  will  gradually  be  silenced;  divisive  tend- 
encies of  whatever  sort  will  be  arrested,  and  our 
union  will  be  preserved. 

The  central  point  in  such  unity  will  be  found 
in  a  cordial  acceptance  on  all  sides  of  the  cardinal 
principles  of  the  Calvinistic  system  as  embodied 
in  our  common  Confession  of  Faith.  We  are 
agreed  in  regarding  our  doctrinal  symbols,  not  as 
above  Scripture  or  co-ordinate  with  Scripture,  but 
as  substantially  representative  of  the  Scripture  so 
far  as  God  has  given  us  grace  to  apprehend  it. 
We  receive  these  symbols  as  containing,  in  the 
language  of  the  adopting  act  of  1727,  "  in  all 
the  essential  and  necessary  articles  good  forms 
of  sound  words,"  or,  in  the  pliraseology  of  tlie 
uniting  act  of  1758,  as  "an  orthodox  and  excel- 
lent system  of  doctrine,  founded  on  the  word  of 
God."     In  the  language  of  the  union  of  1870, 


ITS  PAST  ASD   ITS  FUTURE.  2S3 

we  alike  "  sincerely  receive  and  adopt  the  Con- 
fession of  Faith  as  containing  the  system  of  doc- 
trine tanglit  in  the  Holy  Heriptures,"  each  party 
in  that  union  cordially  "recognizing  the  other 
as  a  sound  and  orthodox  body  according  to  the 
principles  of  the  Confession."  In  this  memorable 
compact,  historically  interpreted,  no  interest  either 
of  orthodoxy  or  of  liberty  is  compromised.  All 
imputations,  all  assumptions,  are  abandoned;  A'ari- 
eties  of  statement  or  explanation  not  subversive 
of  the  common  system  are  allowed  ;  no  theory  or 
school  takes  precedence  of  any  other ;  excessive 
literalism  and  careless  license  in  interpretation 
are  alike  excluded ;  mere  toleration  gives  place 
to  positive  confidence  ;  conservative  and  progres- 
sive elements  coalesce ;  and  a  true  unity,  on  a 
basis  manly  and  Christian  and  scriptural,  and 
therefore  enduring,  is  happily  established.  Fur- 
ther liberty  than  is  thus  secured  no  cordial  Pres- 
byterian desires;  further  guarantees  than  these 
no  generous  Presbyterian  will  demand  ;  and  so 
long  as  the  principles  and  the  spirit  of  this  com- 
pact are  preserved,  the  union  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church  through  all  the  future  is  secure.  Gener- 
ation after  generation,  century  after  century,  it 
may  live  on,  ever  increasing  in  magnitude,  in 
vigor,  in  fruitfulness,  under  these  happy  condi- 
tions. Let  the  reckless  spirit  of  agitation  and 
the  equally  reckless  spirit  of  dogmatism  be  every- 


284  AMERICAN  PRESBYTEEIANISM : 

where  rebuked.  Let  the  disposition  to  exalt  spe- 
cial theories  above  generic  doctrines  and  to  create 
scliools  and  parties  around  minor  and  technical 
differences  be  everywhere  repressed.  Let  that 
narrow  tem2:)er  of  denominationalism  which  mag- 
nifies every  slight  departure  from  tenet  or  usage, 
and  frowns  upon  all  affiliation  with  other  Chris- 
tian sects  or  people,  and  counts  our  blue  the  only 
color  in  the  rainbow  that  sj^aus  the  heaven  of  the 
Church  of  God  on  earth,  be  everywhere  put  to 
silence.  Let  a  just  sense  of  the  worth  of  our 
union  and  a  reasonable  faith  in  its  permanence 
be  steadily  cultivated.  Let  order  and  freedom 
be  ever  clasped  in  loving  embrace.  Let  the  truth 
common  and  dear  to  all  be  exalted  as  supreme. 
Let  a  wise  estimate  of  our  responsibility  as  a 
Church  of  Christ  and  of  our  grand  opportunity 
in  this  land  and  in  the  world  be  develo^^ed  in 
every  mind.  Let  these  harmonizing  conditions 
continue  to  exist,  and  the  sacred  alliance  which 
the  men  of  this  generation  have  formed  will  be 
preserved  from  age  to  age,  even  down  to  the 
millennial  day. 

AMERICAN  PRESBYTEEIANISM  UNIFIED. 

If  this  hop)e  of  denominational  unity  rests  on 
adequate  foundation,  it  justifies  a  further  inquiry 
respecting  the  possible  unificatmi  of  American 
Prcshyterianism.    It  has  been  questioned  whether 


ITS  PAST  AM)   ITS  FUTURE.  2S5 

tlie  combination  of  all  the  existing  varieties  of 
that  Presbyterianisni  in  one  Church  is  a  result  to 
he  desired  or  sought ;  whether  there  are  not  vast 
benefits  secured  through  the  present  distribution 
which  would  be  sacrificed  in  such  union;  whether 
one  great  national  Church,  numbering  even  now 
eicjht  thousand  ministers  and  as  many  congre- 
gations,  with  a  million  communicants  and  nearly 
four  millions  of  adherents,  would  not  become  too 
strong,  proud,  ambitious,  to  be  endured.  It  may 
be  that  the  Master  would  find  it  needful  to  save  a 
Church  having  such  members,  culture,  resources, 
influence,  from  deadness  in  belief,  from  confidence 
in  self,  from  political  aspirations  and  a  false  mate- 
rialistic development,  by  sending  upon  it  some 
sudden  whirlwind  of  division  and  scattering  it 
again  into  separate  and  belligerent  fragments. 

But  though  it  be  certain  that  some  such  issue 
would  follow  the  unification  of  Presbyterianisni, 
apart  from  correspondent  increase  in  faith,  in 
love,  in  every  Christian  grace,  must  we  still  be- 
lieve that  the  present  disparted,  fragmentary, 
partly  hostile  condition  is  divinely  intended  to 
be  the  permanent  state  of  a  group  of  chui-clies 
resting  on  the  same  or  on  kindred  Confessions, 
governed  by  substantially  the  same  polity,  and  so 
largely  ahke  in  worship,  spirit,  tendency  ?  We 
cannot  well  refrain  from  inquiring  whether  the 
differences  now  existing  are  in  their  nature  per- 


286  A3IERICAN  PRESBYTEBIANISM: 

manent  and  ineradicable;  whether  they  are  likely 
to  increase  or  diminish  with  time;  whether,  un- 
der the  attraction  of  what  is  common  to  all,  these 
churches  may  not  hereafter  be  drawn  more  and 
more  closely  toward  each  other;  whether,  at  last, 
they  will  not,  under  the  action  of  these  aflinities, 
ascend  to  a  higher  jjlane  and  destiny  by  becoming, 
in  a  purely  spiritual  sense  of  the  term,  one  na- 
tional Presbyterian  Church,  such  as  the  fathers 
dreamed  of  establishing,  and  such  as  many  of 
the  sons  most  ardently  desire. 

In  answering  such  queries  we  may  note  the 
following  points :  First,  That  the  things  in  which 
these  churches  are  agreed  are  confessed  by  all  to 
be  of  immeasurably  o;reater  moment  than  the 
things  in  which  they  consciously  differ ;  that  in 
doctrine,  in  polity,  in  order  and  method  and 
spirit,  they  are  substantially  one ;  that  this  sense 
of  oneness  is  central,  vital,  ineradicable,  and,  like 
the  law  of  gravity,  is  silently  yet  potentially  oper- 
ating to  draw  these  kindred  fragments  into  actual 
union. 

Secondly,  That  as  a  historic  fact  those  differ- 
ences which  have  from  time  to  time  divided 
American  Presbyterians  have,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  these  attractions,  grown  weaker  rather 
than  stronger  with  time ;  that  those  of  foreign 
origin  have  gradually  melted  away  as  the  Amer- 
ican   spirit  has   surrounded   and   wrought  upon 


ITS  PAST  AND  ITS  FUTURE.  287 

tliem  ;  and  that  by  successive  acts  of  union  these 
churches  have  confessed  it  to  be  needless,  foolish, 
even  wicked,  to  hold  asunder,  for  such  incidental 
reasons,  what  God  has  so  vitally  joined  together. 

And  thirdly,  That  the  dominant  tendency  of 
the  age,  especially  in  Protestant  Christianity,  is 
toward  the  repression  of  whatever  is  divisive 
among  Christian  sects,  and  the  cultivation  in  all 
available  forms  of  spiritual  and  even  organic 
union ;  that  diversities  between  kindred  denomi- 
nations which  might  have  justified  division  a  cen- 
tury or  even  a  generation  ago  justify  division 
no  longer ;  that  both  internal  experiences  and 
the  external  assaults  of  unbelief  and  of  a  cor- 
rupted Christianity  are  compelling  Protestantism 
to  cherish  with  new  interest  the  grand  central 
verities  in  which  all  evangelical  sects  are  agreed; 
and  that  Presbyterianism  especially  has  seemed 
to  be  passing  providentially  through  such  a  spir- 
itual process  of  affiliation  as  if  in  preparation  for 
some  organic  agreement  in  the  future. 

How  rapidly  such  tendencies  may  make  them- 
selves felt,  or  how  far  their  influence  may  reach, 
it  would  be  unwise  to  predict.  In  the  absence 
of  the  spirit  of  prophecy,  it  may  not  be  wrong  to 
whisper  the  language  of  hope.  In  the  case,  for 
example,  of  that  venerable  body  of  Calvinists  of 
European  origin  first  planted  in  the  colony  of 
New  York  Ions:  before  the  introduction  of  British 


288  AMERICAN  PRESBYTERIANISM: 

Presbyterianism — a  body  whose  general  doctrine 
and  order  are  so  like  our  own,  whose  history  runs 
so  closely  parallel  with  ours,  and  whose  catechism 
we  have  commended  as  worthy  of  study  in  our 
churches;  a  body  in  respect  to  which  the  main 
question  urgent  seems  to  be  whether  it  shall  be 
called  Presbyterian  or  we  be  called  Peformed, — 
in  this  case,  is  it  unreasonable  to  anticipate  that 
with  time  ancestral  memories  w^ill  so  far  become 
dim  and  special  peculiarities  so  far  diminish,  and 
that  the  generic  sense  of  community  in  faith  and 
interest  and  destiny  will  be  so  far  developed,  that 
another  centennial  year  will  not  witness  this 
venerable  Church  standing  side  by  side  with 
ours,  consciously  like  it  in  almost  everything  but 
a  name,  yet  separated  by  a  name,  and  a  name 
only? 

In  the  case  of  those  Presbyterian  bodies  which 
have  preserved  more  distinctively  foreign  titles 
and  usages,  and  which  are  now  separated  from 
us  chiefly  by  certain  preferences  as  to  worship 
and  communion,  may  we  not  on  similar  grounds 
anticipate  a  relative  subsidence  of  such  joeculi- 
arities,  the  rise  on  either  side  of  an  increasing 
interest  based  on  closer  practical  fellowship,  and 
a  progressive  oneness  in  spirit  and  substance 
which  will  in  due  time  demand  a  corresponding 
oneness  in  form  ?  Not,  indeed,  by  violent  con- 
quest on  our  part  or  by  mere  absorption  or  sheer 


ITS  PAST  AM)  ITS  FUTURE.  289 

crowding,  such  as  drives  tlie  weaker  to  the  wall, 
is  such  oneness  to  he  secured,  hut  rather  through 
a  generous  appreciation  of  these  kindred  churches 
in  their  peculiarities,  through  sincere  respect  for 
every  variety  in  taste  or  teaching  or  practice  not 
suhversive  of  the  common  faith,  and  especially 
through  the  culture  in  ourselves  and  in  them  of 
the  hroad,  sweet,  holy  sense  of  a  common  inherit- 
ance in  Christ. 

In  respect  to  the  Preshyterian  Church  South, 
now  separated  from  us  by  experiences  which,  like 
bruises,  do  not  seem  to  admit  immediate  remedy, 
it  is  not  improper  to  suggest  that  the  thoughtful 
Christian  observer,  studying  alike  the  causes  of 
that  separation  and  the  forces  tending  tow^ard  re- 
union, need  not  be  despondent  of  the  issue.  To 
such  a  mind  it  will  become  obvious,  on  the  closest 
examination,  that  there  are  no  distinctive  prin- 
ciples in  the  case,  even  respecting  the  true  cha- 
racter and  functions  of  the  Church  of  Christ  on 
earth,  which  are  so  vital  as  to  require  for  their 
due  maintenance  on  this  continent  an  independ- 
ent organization,  permanently  separating  itself 
by  broad  lines  from  all  other  Presbyterian  bodies. 
Such  a  mind  will  also  readily  apprehend  the 
casual  nature  of  the  forces  which  have  led  to 
this  sundering  of  old  and  precious  ties,  and  will 
appreciate  the  enduring  character  of  the  many 
ligatui-es  yet  unsevered  which  are  steadily  pro- 


290  AMERICAN  PRESBYTERIANISM: 

testing  against  that  rupture  and  tenderly  plead- 
ing for  union.  And  every  such  mind  must 
judge  that,  while  our  Church  can  never  forsake 
her  ancient  testimonies  against  sin  or  give  up  her 
ancestral  right  to  stand  by  the  State  in  times  of 
peril,  she  owes  it  to  herself  and  to  the  gospel  to 
allow  no  animosities,  to  admit  no  sectional  preju- 
dices, to  make  no  unreasonable  claims  or  condi- 
tions, but  rather  to  cherish  toward  these  alien- 
ated brethren  the  warmest  and  purest  Christian 
friendship,  even  while  believing  their  alienation 
to  be  without  just  foundation.  Such  a  Church 
as  ours  can  afford  to  pass  with  a  quiet  smile  the 
assumptions  of  superior  orthodoxy,  or  even  the 
present  charge  of  latitudinarianism  or  of  affilia- 
tion with  infidelity,  regarding  these  as  the  mani- 
festations in  a  few  minds  of  an  emotional  ex- 
citement of  the  rhetorical  type  rather  than  the 
sober,  honest,  permanent  judgment  entertained 
by  the  multitude  of  the  ministry  and  member- 
ship in  the  Southern  communion.  Such  a 
Church  as  ours,  ignoring  these  temporary  trifles, 
and  breathing  still  the  temper  of  Christian  love, 
while  adhering  loyally  to  all  that  is  due. to  prin- 
ciple and  to  honor,  may  wisely  wait  for  the  glad 
hour  when  that  judgment  will  assert  itself  even 
in  t]ie  face  of  mistaken  leadership,  and  when  the 
healing  agencies  of  time  shall  have  prepared  the 
way  not  merely  for  fraternal  relations,  but  for  a 


ITS  PAST  AND  ITS  FUTURE.  '^'^1 

fraternal  union.     That  hour  will  assuredly  come 
Living  Churches  cannot  be  kept  asunder  by  dead 
issues  •  kindred  Churches  cannot  be  held  apart 
by  minor  differences.    The  grand  essential  agree- 
ments in  the  case,  tlie  conscious  possession  of  a 
common  heritage  in  belief  and  history,  the  re- 
turning sense  of  unity  deeper  and  broader  than 
all  diversities,  and  especially  the  developing  con- 
sciousness  of  one  great  mission  to  this  land  and 
to  the  world,  will  bring  these  sundered  Churches 
together  and  make  them  truly  and  heartily  one. 
God  grant  it  even  in  our  time ! 

PEESBYTEEIAN   FEDERATION. 

If  we  may  thus  reasonably  anticipate  not  only 
the  continuance  of  our  own  denominational  unity, 
but  also   the  ultimate  unification  of  American 
Presbyterianism,  we  may,  on  the  foundation  fur- 
nished   bv    these   two    hopes,    contemplate   fur- 
ther the  still  broader  question  already  stated— 
whether    any    combination    of    Fresbytermnwn 
throughout  the  world   is   possible,  and_  whether 
American   Presbyterianism,   and    especially    our 
own  Church,  has  any  special  duty  with  respect 
to  such  a  consummation.     Let  us  glance  at  this 

question  for  a  moment.  ,.    ,      -o     u 

The  fact  that  such  a  federation  of  the  Presby- 
terianism of  the  world  has  already  been  under- 
taken  is  one  of  deep  significance,  and  the  further 


292  AMERICAN  PRESBYTEBIANISM : 

fact  that — to  use  the  apt  expression  of  Professor 
Blaikie — "  the  first  articulate  call "  for  such  a 
federation  came  from  our  own  Church,  commits 
us  especially  to  every  effort  requisite  to  make  this 
movement  successful.  In  answer  to  that  call 
and  to  the  like  action  of  other  Presbyterian 
bodies,  especially  in  the  British  Isles,  represen- 
tatives of  twenty-two  such  organizations  and  of 
more  than  fifteen  thousand  particular  churches 
liave  already  in  solemn  assembly  agreed  on  the 
basis  of  an  alliance  in  which  the  Presbyterian  ism 
of  the  world  may  become  united,  and  through 
which  the  truth,  the  order,  the  interests,  common 
to  all  may  be  defended,  supported  and  diffused. 
Should  that  basis  of  federation  be  ratified,  Amer- 
ican Presbyterianism  will  be  set  at  once  into  new 
and  most  interesting  and  influential  relations  to 
the  Presbyterianism  of  the  Old  World,  and  our 
own  Church — much  the  largest  Presbyterian  or- 
ganization on  earth,  and  equal  in  size  to  all  of 
the  Presbyterian  bodies  in  Scotland,  England 
and  Ireland  combined,  including  the  eleven 
hundred  Calvinistic  churches  of  Wales^will  be 
brought  into  connections  with  that  Presbyterian- 
ism full  of  interest  and  fraught  with  the  highest 
responsibility.  We  are  thus,  in  virtue  of  our 
numbers,  our  principles  and  our  representative 
position,  providentially  summoned  and  com- 
mitted   to   a  work   bearing    not  only  upon   the 


ITS  PAST  AM)  ITS  FUTURE.  293 

closer  coinbi nation  of  all  varieties  of  our  com- 
mon fiiith  and  order,  but  also  upon  the  harmon- 
izing and  unifying  of  Protestantism  itself  in 
preparation  for  the  final  battles  of  the  gospel 
with  false  religion  and  with  human  unbelief. 
Are  we  ready  for  that  summons  ? 

Without  adverting  specifically  to  the  objec- 
tions ui'o-ed  against  this  federation — that  the 
conception  is  essentially  impractical,  and  will,  in 
fact,  produce  nothing  but  a  showy  convention  for 
talk  and  debate,  or  that,  if  successful,  it  would 
ere  long  degenerate  into  some  organic  union, 
some  oecumenical  General  Assembly  dangerous 
to  local  liberties,  or  that  it  would  in  practice 
simply  develop  an  excessive  spirit  of  sect,  and 
thus  separate  the  Presbyterian  body  disastrously 
from  other  sections  of  Protestantism, — without 
adverting  specifically  to  such  objections,  we  may 
simply  note  two  decisive  considerations  in  the 
opposite  direction. 

1.  The  Preshyterianism  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury owes  it  to  itself  to  assume  this  broad  catholic 
attitude  in  the  2yresence  of  Christendom.  It  is  a 
manifest  fact  that,  divided  as  the  Presbyterian 
Churches  have  been  by  national  or  provincial 
differences,  by  theological  theories  and  tenden- 
cies, by  varieties  in  taste  and  usage  and  worship 
— broken  up  as  we  are  now  into  separate  sections 
and  schools,  far  apart  in  thought  and  impulse, 


294  AMERICAN  PRESBYTERIANISM: 

intensely  conscious  of  each  difference  and  too 
dimly  conscious  of  the  underlying  unity — our 
common  Presbyterianism  has  never  yet  made,  is 
not  now  making,  upon  the  Christian  world  the 
one  distinct,  potent  impression  which  it  is  in 
itself  capable  of  producing.  Christendom  has 
seen  it  only  in  "  broken  lights,"  generally  re- 
fracting, sometimes  distorting,  its  true  image. 
Our  polity  has  been  administered  in  such  various 
methods,  and  often  in  a  spirit  so  much  at  vari- 
ance with  its  scriptural  structure  and  temper,  that 
multitudes  have  been  blinded  to  its  better  quality 
and  its  beneficent  working.  Our  faith  has  been 
so  tenacious  and  so  militant  in  its  varieties,  so 
much  a  battle-ground  for  speculative  antagon- 
isms rather  than  a  harvest-field  of  truth  full  of 
grace  and  blessing  for  the  world,  that  myriads 
have  turned  away  from  it  and  found  refuge  in 
other  systems  of  belief,  less  ample,  less  harmoni- 
ous, but  more  nutritious  to  the  soul.  Such  is  the 
plain  witness  of  history ;  such  in  great  degree  is 
the  impression  which  Presbyterianism  is  now 
making  on  the  mind  and  the  heart  of  Christen- 
dom. 

Must  it  be  so  for  ever  ?  Do  we  not  owe  it  to 
ourselves  and  to  our  common  heritage  to  correct 
such  impressions  by  exhibiting  our  Presbyteri- 
anism in  its  unity  rather  than  its  diversities? 
Why  should  we  conceal  the  intrinsic  excellence 


ITS  FAST  AXD   ITS  FUTURE.  205 

of  our  common  form  of  government  by  the 
smoke  of  our  warfare  around  specific  varieties  (jf 
usage  or  expediency — by  the  chnnor  of  our  dis- 
cussions respecting  some  speculative  element  in 
the  system  itself?  Why  should  we  suffer  small 
differentia  in  doctrinal  statement  to  be  so  thrust 
forward,  so  emphasized  as  vital,  so  wrestled  with 
and  fought  for,  that  neither  the  world  nor  even 
ourselves  are  able  to  see  what  the  Calvinistic  sys- 
tem of  doctrine,  considered  in  its  generic  com- 
pleteness, really  is  ?  And  will  it  not  be  a  vast 
advance  if  the  Presbyterianism  of  the  twentieth 
century  should  be  able  to  rise  above  such  diver- 
sities, and  to  clasp  hands  for  the  first  time  since 
the  age  of  Calvin  around  that  common  Confes- 
sion in  which  the  great  essential  truths  of  the 
gospel  seem  to  us  to  be  embodied,  and  which, 
therefore,  is  dearer  to  all  than  any  of  these  dif- 
ferences can  possibly  be?  With  no  disloyalty  to 
any  specific  truth  or  theory,  with  most  cordial 
recognition  of  the  right  to  differ  on  secondary 
questions  in  that  loving  temper  which  the  con- 
sciousness of  essential  union  must  engender,  may 
not  that  Presbyterianism,  by  being  thus  true  to 
its  most  vital  principles,  make  a  new  impression 
on  the  thought  and  heart  of  Christendom,  and  so 
win  for  itself  a  grander  place  in  the  one  Church 
of  Christ  on  earth  ? 

2.  Presbyterianism  owes  this  ako  to  the  general 


29G  AMERICAN  PRESBYTERIANISM: 

cause  of  evangelical  Protestantism.  All  thought- 
ful minds  recognize  the  unifying  of  that  Protest- 
antism as  one  of  the  necessary  issues  of  the  future 
— a  result  suggested  by  the  scriptural  view  of  the 
Church,  at  least  in  its  millennial  condition,  ex- 
pressed in  the  prayer  of  our  Lord  and  in  the 
universal  hope  of  his  disciples,  indicated  in  the 
earliest  Christian  creed,  and  incorporated  in  the 
golden  doctrine  of  our  own  Confession  respecting 
the  communion  of  saints.  As  a  materialistic  Chris- 
tianity already  proposes  to  organize  itself  in  a 
triple  hierarchy,  with  its  centre  at  Rome,  its  right 
arm  in  Constantinople  and  its  left  arm  in  London, 
so  our  spiritual  Christianity  must  ultimately  con- 
centrate itself  for  defence,  and  for  aggression  also, 
in  what  w^ill  be  at  least  the  germ  of  the  Church 
millennial.  This  result  is  not,  indeed,  to  be 
secured  by  processes  of  external  organization 
merely,  through  mere  unities  in  name  and  form, 
and  still  less  by  the  universal  abandonment  of 
method  and  order  in  the  house  of  God,  or  by  any 
ignoring  of  the  scriptural  principles  on  which 
the  Church  is  founded.  Far  from  it;  but  rather 
by  a  richer  development  of  piety,  by  a  sweeter 
sense  of  union  in  Christ,  by  holier  consecration 
to  the  common  Head  and  closer  fellowship  with 
him  in  the  mighty  task  of  subduing  our  humanity 
unto  himself.  That  such  a  high,  blessed,  poten- 
tial union  of  the  divided  fragments  of  the  one 


ITS  PAST  AND  ITS  FUTURE.  2J)7 

Cliurch  of  God  on  earth  will  yet  come,  as  the 
coiisuhiinating  step  of  our  Christianity  toward  tlie 
millennial  glory,  is  the  anticipation,  the  hope,  the 
prayer,  of  all  believing  hearts. 

But  what  relations  does  our  Presbyterianism 
sustain  to  such  a  consummation,  and  what  espe- 
cially would  be  the  influence  of  the  proposed 
Presbyterian  federation  on  this  broader  result? 
It  is  to  be  remembered  that  no  other  type  of 
Protestantism  is  so  nearly  cosmopolitan  as  ours, 
no  other  form  of  Protestant  belief  has  been  so 
widely  diffused,  or  has  become  rooted  and  preva- 
lent in  so  many  lands.  Presbyterianism  is,  in 
fact,  but  little  less  oecumenical  than  Komanism. 
itself;  and  this  is  due  not  simply  to  the  fact  tliat 
it  was  first  in  the  triad  of  politics  and  first  in  the 
types  of  doctrine  which  originated  with  the  Ref- 
ormation, but  also  to  the  further  fact  that  it  con- 
tains elements  which  commend  it  widely,  possesses 
peculiar  machinery  for  propagation  and  is  strongly 
animated  by  the  propagative  spirit.  It  has  con- 
sequently come  to  occupy  a  special  place  in  the 
series  of  Protestant  sects.  As  they  stand  in  group, 
it  is  Presbyterianism  rather  than  Prelacy  or  Inde- 
pendency which  is  central.  Moreover,  the  marked 
emphasis  which  it  lays  upon  the  doctrine  of  the 
one  Church  of  Christ,  invisible  and  catholic,  and 
the  prominence  it  habitually  gives  to  the  duty 
of  the  communion  of  saints,  both  pledge  it  to  the 


298  AMERICAN  PRESBYTEBIANISM: 

broadest  Christian  fellowship  and  attract  toward 
it  the  confidence  and  love  of  all  other  Chris- 
tian denominations.  Is  it  not  obvious  for  these 
reasons  that  Presbjterianism,  especially  as  con- 
federated, has  a  special  work  to  do  in  the  unify- 
ing of  Protestantism,  and  that  the  Presbyterian 
Church,  and  especially  our  own,  will  prove  untrue 
to  her  historic  principles  and  spirit  if  she  does 
not  become,  in  the  hands  of  God,  a  conspicuous 
agent  in  bringing — to  use  the  prophetic  words 
of  Calvin — "the  separated  Churches  into  one"? 
And  who  that  properly  appreciates  the  grandeur 
of  such  a  mission  would  not  add  the  heroic 
declaration  of  the  great  Eeformer,  in  his  letter 
to  Cranmer,  as  he  contemplated  the  sundered 
body  of  Christ  and  longed  to  see  its  holy  com- 
munion restored  :  "  So  far  as  I  am  concerned,  if 
I  can  be  of  any  use,  I  will  readily  pass  over  ten 
seas  to  effect  that  object"  ?  God  grant  that  the 
hopes  and  prayers  of  Calvin  and  his  associates, 
Continental  and  British,  for  the  unifying  of 
Protestantism,  may  be  speedily  realized ;  and 
God  grant  that  in  that  process  our  own  Church, 
the  Church  of  Calvin,  may  be  found  in  the  future, 
as  in  the  past,  first  and  foremost ! 

CONCLUSION. 

Fathers  and  brethren  :  so  fiir  as  the  limits  of 
one  brief  hour  would  permit,  I  have  endeavored 


ITS  PAST  AXn  ITS  FUTURE.  209 

to  bring  before  you  some  of  the  more  urgent 
considerations  spontaneously  suggesting  them- 
selves in  this  historic  year  respecting  the  past 
and  the  future  of  American  Presbyterian  ism, 
especially  as  represented  in  our  own  beloved 
Church.  Standing  still  only  on  the  threshold 
of  the  vast  theme  1  am  constrained  to  pause  with 
simple  mention  of  the  two  primary  duties  which 
such  a  survey  enforces :  Gratitude  for  the  Fast, 
Cojisecration  for  the  Future.  I  trust  that  these 
kindred  duties  are  at  this  sacred  hour  empha- 
sizing themselves  distinctly  and  tenderly  in 
every  conscience.  I  trust  that  psalms  of  com- 
memoration and  hymns  of  joy  and  hope  are 
ready  to  break  forth  from  every  heart.  I  trust 
that  some  becoming  sense  of  the  grandeur  of 
this  hour,  and  some  appro2)riate  vision  of  our 
personal  responsibility,  as  representatives  of  such 
a  Church  at  such  a  time,  are  animating  us  with 
unwonted  zeal.  I  trust  that,  while  we  are  grate- 
ful for  what,  through  grace  divine,  the  fathers 
wrought,  we  shall  catch  some  measure  of  their 
spirit,  and  by  the  same  grace  be  enabled  to  do  as 
well  the  solemn  and  the  significant  work  now  de- 
volving upon  us.  I  trust  that  we  shall  esteem  it 
our  joy  and  our  glory  to  have  our  lives  now  and 
always  builded  in  as  living  stones  into  a  struc- 
ture so  vast,  so  strong,  so  beautiful,  as  our  Zion 
is  vet  to  be.      And   T  trust  that,  as  we   oatlier 


300  AMERICAN  rRESBYTERIANISM. 

inspiration  from  these  rare,  sweet  glimpses  of  a 
future  too  great  to  be  adequately  measured  by- 
present  thought — as  we  go  forward  to  the  work 
before  us,  drawing  courage  from  the  grand  ^^ossi- 
bilities  thus  stretching  out  before  tlie  Church  we 
love  and  serve — we  may  be  stimulated  also  by 
due  remembrance  of  the  brevity  of  that  fleeting 
day  in  which  it  is  given  to  us  to  live  and  work. 
Let  us  hear  at  this  hour  the  voices  of  the  beloved 
and  honored  dead,  our  brethren  in  this  service, 
who,  nearly  fourscore  in  luimber,  have  during 
tlie  past  year  finished  their  part  in  this  great 
development.  The  venerated  Dickinson,  whose 
name  is  for  ever  associated  with  the  Auburn 
Declaration,  and  the  accomplished  Condit,  both 
of  wliom  had  occupied  the  highest  positions  in 
the  Church,  the  venerable  fathei'S  Cliambers 
and  Davidson,  the  diligent  and  able  historian 
Gillett,  Macdonald,  preacher  and  scholar  at 
Princeton,  the  honored  Sprague,  annalist  and 
biographer  of  the  Church,  Johnston,  patriarch 
and  pillar  of  Presbyterianism  in  the  West,  Sut- 
plien  and  Buckingham,  Henderson  and  Fillmore 
and  Mattocks,  and  many  other  holy  brethren 
who  with  these  have  ceased  from  their  labors, — 
all  these,  a  great  cloud  of  witnesses,  are — how 
impressively! — summoning  us  to  duty  and  service 
fur  the  Master.     Let  rs  be  up  and  doing. 


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